


As We Were, As We Are

by jaerie



Category: Dunkirk (2017), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Blood and Violence, Graphic descriptions of war, Gunshot Wounds, Injury Recovery, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:54:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13369065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaerie/pseuds/jaerie
Summary: Alex is a British soldier who has been injured in battle, Louis is a RAF pilot with amnesia.  Somehow they put each other back together even if they get separated along the way.





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delsicle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delsicle/gifts).



> First of all as I gift this work, I really hope it hit enough of your prompt points for you to enjoy it. I nearly exposed myself to you once opening up a conversation about an aspect of this fic without even knowing it but I don’t think you’ll catch on! I hope you like this as much as I do. 
> 
> This was a huge project for me that I set out to finish during nanowrimo. It was the first time I’ve ever stuck with it and won even with my hours and hours of research in the mix. I am very proud of this work and have jokingly referred to it as my masterpiece. 
> 
> A few things:  
> Everything in this fic was heavily researched and written this way for very specific reasons. There are a lot of things I placed in this fic that came from first hand accounts and documented culture and events during this time that I can provide citations for if anyone is interested in seeing where I got my information from. It is all soooooo interesting and I would almost say I spent more time researching than writing if you count all the documentaries I started watching just for fun. 
> 
> HOWEVER, I did take a few liberties. I found out the song I used actually was released in 1942, there was surprisingly very little information about the happenings at Hatfield House so I’ve taken some creative liberties there and their letters probably contain a bit more information than would have been allowed by the censors. So just roll with it while knowing that in general this is a fairly accurate portrayal of the time. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who put up with me talking about this epic while I was writing it, to all the people and friends I made read it and to all the betas who glanced at it for me. You were all very helpful!

* * *

 

Alex was ripped out of a restless sleep, body already covered in a sheen of cold sweat with the screams echoing against the walls and high ceiling, ricocheting at him from all angles.  His heart raced and mind tried to catch up in a fight or flight response to save himself from the spray of bullets that was surely overtaking them, phantom ack-ack bouncing around his head, the squeal of the bomb descending from the sky, the engines of tanks thundering in the spaces between.  He covered his head and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, bracing for impact, for the sharp stabbing pains.  

But, the overwhelming decibels of gunshots never came, the explosions not actually occurring around him.  Only one lone voice shot through him with terrorised cries.  Just one voice, not an agonised chorus of the suffering of many.  The soft glow of an electric light slowly brought him back to reality, back to the present.  

He was safe.  The mattress beneath him was real.  The walls around him were sturdy.  The room was warm with embers still glowing in the fireplace.  His pyjamas were soft flannel replacing the rough and scratchy woollen uniform.  He was no longer in enemy territory.  He no longer had to fight.

It was oddly comforting to realise that the enemy was isolated in his own head, Alex had them trapped there too.  He didn’t mind being violently shaken from a sound sleep in the middle of the night when it meant he was able to wake up away from hell.  Even though the symptoms and effects caused by his mental scars constantly haunted him, he would take the inconvenience gladly over what had happened to the soldier who had slept beside him.  

The last soldier hadn’t made it.  The last soldier was dead.    

 

**22nd November 1939**

 

“Alex, honey, where have you been?”

The butter dish was just being set on the table when the back door slammed shut behind him, a rush of cold air following him into the house.  His mother eyed him with an expression that easily relayed she was ready to scold him for being late if his excuse wasn’t valid.  He began to shrug off his coat and then quickly took a step back to remove his boots, not ready to catch hell for tracking snow across the kitchen floor as well.  It was just a light dusting, the first of the year and earlier than usual, but enough to collect moisture on his boots since he had taken the shortcut through the yard.  It wouldn’t stick, and by morning there would be no trace that it had ever been there at all.    

“Sorry mum,” he bent to untie his boot laces, a hand steady on the door to balance himself.

“Hold up, can you please fetch some more wood for the stove first?  I don’t want to be caught without if this weather decides to take a turn.”

“Yes, mum,” he kept his sigh to himself and slipped his heel back down into his boot.  He tucked his untied laces in around his ankle to head back outside, the chill hitting him even after having been in the warmth for just a few minutes.  

His breath clouded around him in the dimming evening light while he loaded the already split and stacked logs into the metal firewood cradle.  He sometimes wished his family could afford to do some upgrading to their kitchen but today the chore was a welcome delay to the inevitable conversation he would have to have, even if he still grumbled about it.  The neighbours fat marmalade cat jumped up onto the woodpile as he worked, meowing and begging for his attention as always.   

“Can’t you see I’m trying to do a job here?” he scolded lightly but still took a moment to smooth down the fluffy fur over her head, the section between her ears that always seemed to stick straight up like a rooster’s comb. “You’re going to miss me, aren’t you?  I know I’m the only foolish one around here to sneak you bits of chicken.  That’s why I’m your favourite.  Don’t worry, I’m going to miss you, too.”

He ruffled her soft fuzz and continued, humming softly to himself as he did.  Once he had a full load, he turned back towards the house, the cat jumping down to run off on another adventure.  There was already a sense of nostalgia creeping in, realising these mundane tasks wouldn’t be his to perform for his mother for much longer.  Even if the events of the day had gone differently, he was nineteen now, almost twenty.  The kick out of the nest was just around the corner.  

His sister had already been engaged by his age.  She had been planning her future while Alex was still searching for direction.  That was why it seemed like the only logical next move for his life.  Maybe it had been a rash decision but he’d seen an opportunity and had taken it.  He hoped his father would be proud.  

When he got back inside his father was already seated at the small table pushed up against the wall in their kitchen, only three seats needed now in the already cramped space.  They rarely used their formal dining table since his sister had left the house.  

His father sat with his teacup held aloft in his hand, sipping at it every few minutes while his eyes stayed glued to the new public service leaflets Harry had yet to see.  More information on conserving, he assumed.

“Alex, make sure you pull the blackout curtain tight where you’ve knocked it,” his mum gestured towards the window cut out on their back door.  Sure enough, he had knocked the heavy fabric with his bulky coat or perhaps with the box strapped over his shoulder with his government issued gas mask safely stored inside.  After several months he had become accustomed to hauling it around wherever he went but it still felt a bit clumsy. He fixed the curtain to cover the corner of the glass where he could clearly see the last light of the day peeking through.  If he could see that from the inside, that left the light from the kitchen to shine out like a flashlight, a beacon to the German bombers, a target should they find their way this far North.  

He slipped out of his boots, leaving them lined up on the small rug and slipped around the table to hang his coat in the cupboard in the entrance hall under the narrow staircase.  He caught his reflection in the oval hall mirror and ruffled his hair back into place.  It could use a trim, a few pieces beginning to curl stubbornly at the ends over his ears.  

The kitchen, though cosy, always felt comforting to him.  It was akin to a hug from his mother, the aroma of a home cooked meal and the warm air from the stove never failed to lure him in.  He stepped up to the sink to wash his hands, the tap squeaking as it turned to sputter out ice cold water.  He really needed to remember to fix that before he left.  His eyes shifted up to look out the window as he would have before the blackout, but instead found himself staring at the heavy layered fabric in its place.  It was just another reminder of the war that just didn’t quite feel real yet.  

“Darling can you please grab the rolls from the breadbin?” his mum shifted in her seat to ask after he had dried his hands on the kitchen towel.  He nodded and obeyed, plucking three white dinner rolls from the cylindrical tin, holding them all in one hand while he pressed the lid back into place.  He handed them over and they all settled into their normal evening meal routine, Alex shifting his own chair closer after sitting down.  He righted his teacup and reached towards the tea kettle under it’s cosy, stopping short when his mum folded her hands in front of her.  

“George, will you say grace?”  

His father made a grunt of acknowledgment and Alex obediently followed suit to fold his hands, linking his fingers and resting the plushy side of his hands against the table edge.  

“Father, bless this food we are fortunate enough to have in front of us this evening.  We give thanks for our health on this day and ask for it in the days to come and we ask you keep the bloody Germans out of our skies.  Amen.”  

“George!” his mum scolded, acting scandalised, though none of them could deny it was a subject that had been on the forefront of their minds, especially since war had been declared only a couple months before.  

They filled their plates without another word about it, buttering their buns and slicing their potatoes in a silence that carried an edge of anxiety.  

“Where were you off to today, Lexie?” his mum addressed him, patting his hand affectionately before directing her attention back to her own plate.  

“Went ‘round to the recruiting office with Nick this afternoon and enlisted,” he replied in the most casual way he could manage.  Best to just be out with it.

The clatter of cutlery against china was deafening when compared to the pregnant silence that followed.  He kept his eyes down, hands paused mid-cut while he waited for the world to start turning again.

“Alex, honey, you didn’t!” his mum gasped beside him, the dread and horror thick both in her voice and on her face once he finally gathered the courage to look up.  

His heart began to race with the emotions soaking the room like a soggy blanket, realisation and finality of his spontaneous act slamming into him with his mother’s reaction.  The weight was tangible.  

“Someone’s got to defend the country, mum.  I couldn’t live with myself if I sat back and let the Nazi’s overtake the British Expedionary Force when I could have increased their numbers!  Nothing’s happened yet, which is why we need to take care of this now!  Now that we’ve joined up, it won’t be long now and I need to be part of it!”

“But you’re just one boy!  You can’t go running off to France expecting to take Hitler out yourself!”

“All of us are just one person!” Alex steadied his voice with conviction, fists tightening around the flatware still clutched in his hands, “But together we make an army, a bloody stronger one than the Germans could ever have.  It’s my duty to the country, to everyone, to do my part.  You’ve seen the posters on the street, seen the evacuation plans, carry around the same mask that I do.  Do you want something to happen here at home?  Because if we don’t fight for it, something will!”

“We could get you enrolled in school, that would surely exempt you,” she worried her hands in her lap, eyes unfocused on the table in front of her, appearing to mumble to herself.  

“It doesn’t work like that.  It’s already done.  I’d be getting my call up papers any day now anyways, I only sped up the inevitable.  Jacob got his papers before we were even in the war!”  

He recalled easily the day this past summer when his mate from back in grammar school received his card in the mail.  They’d shared a fag outside the pub and reminisced about the times they were small children playing with toy soldiers and romanticising the glory of it.  It felt much different now that they could be on the receiving side of a bullet but they had both agreed that they would take the chance over being Hitler’s bitches.  Without a doubt Jacob had been shipped out with the first wave of troops off to France or Norway to hold the borders.  So far, there hadn’t been any news, not even a letter.  His mum had popped into the shop just last Saturday with no update to give.  It was the boys his age that would be called up first; it would have been a waiting game.  At least with enlisting himself, he knew.

His father sat across the table, silent and tight lipped.  With his hand curled around his teacup, he stared into its milky depth and Alex tried not to show his disappointment in his lack of reaction.  He had been expecting a proud pat on the back, a sentiment of approval.    

“Oh Alex,” his mother burst into tears beside him, burying her face into her hands in body shuddering sobs.  He wasn’t sure what to do, eyes moving between his parent’s vastly different reactions at a loss.  Of course he had known his mother would be upset, her only son going off to war, but while he was going through his physical exam and then signing the papers, he imagined more of a hero’s welcome with his announcement.  His father’s sombre expression and his mother’s emotional display seemed unexpected.  In hindsight, he should have expected it.  

He consciously loosened his grip on his fork, resting the silver down before pushing his plate a few inches away.  The hunger had been replaced with a feeling that bobbed up at the back of his throat and caused him to swallow hard.  

“When do you ship out?” his father’s voice startled him, the deep tone breaking through the barely muffled sobs.  

“When I receive my call up papers, I suppose.”  His throat constricted as he nearly choked on his words, the courage it took to look his father in the eye a rally of everything he had.  

George nodded once before standing from his chair, leaving them behind in the kitchen without another word.  

 

**26th November 1939**

 

It was the very next Monday when his call up papers arrived.  The letter stuck out amongst the others, “On His Majesty’s Service” printed in bold type along the top of the envelope.  The Ministry of Labour and Natural Service had wasted no time accepting his services, then.  He stood there in the dim light of the entrance hall where the blackout curtains were still drawn over the front door.   Natural light filtered through through the rest of the house where the blackout curtains were not yet in place for the day and shadowed him from behind.

The other letters in the stack fluttered carelessly around his feet in his eagerness and anxiety to pull the paper from inside, the rest forgotten as his vision tunnelled to only the text on the page.  

 

**National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939**

** Enlistment Notification **

**Ministry of Labour and National Service**  
Employment Exchange  


**Dear Sir,**

**In accordance with National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939, you are called upon for service in**

**the _____** _ Armed Forces_____ _ **and are required to present yourself on ____** _ Monday 03 Dec 1939____ _

**at 10a.m., or as early as possible on that day to:**

____Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders _____  
____Stirling Castle____________________  
____Stirling Scotland__________________  
____FK8 1EJ________________________

_ _______Salford __________ _ **(nearest railway station).**

**A Traveling Warrant for your journey is enclosed.  Before starting your journey you must exchange  
****the warrant for a ticket at the booking office named on the warrant.  If possible, this should be done**  
**a day or two before you are due to travel.**  
 **A Postal Order for 4s. in respect of advance of service pay, is also enclosed.  Uniform and**  
 **personal kit will be issued to you after joining H.M. Forces.  Any kit that you take with you should not**  
 **exceed an overcoat, change of clothes, stout pair of boots, and personal kit, such as razor, hair brush,**  
 **tooth brush, soap and towel.**  
 **Immediately on receipt of this notice, you should inform your employer of the date upon which**  
 **you are required to report for service.**  
  


The stiff cardstock felt heavy in his hand, the weight of the war balanced between his fingertips.  The blue ink of the rubber stamped date and loopy handwritten information scrawled across the lines seemed to float above the rest of the text, a confirmed reminder of the choice he had made.  It had been all too easy to push the idea to the back of his mind over the course of the last week, second guessing his decision with time to stew in it, then shoving it away again with each new odd job he picked up around the neighbourhood, with each shift he worked at the shop.  Mr. James would have to find someone else to mind the shop on Saturdays while he did the books and inventories in the back.  He wouldn’t be too happy about that.  Alex was the only one who knew he didn’t just balance the books in back.  He wasn’t sure someone else would keep his secrets.

He squinted at the slanted handwriting in the middle of the typed text.  He had never heard of Argyll and Sutherland before.  He’d never been to Scotland either for that matter, though in signing up for a war in Europe, Scotland would probably be the tamest stop in his travels.  At least he could say he had ventured outside the little industrial bubble of Manchester, which was something he had never done before.  He had never even been to London during his nineteen years of life.  Everything he had ever needed had always been close to home, something his father reminded him often when he was younger, when he was restless and hopelessly adventurous.  He had grown more tame since then, more complacent, but still enjoyed the idea of travelling and seeing the world.  This would be his opportunity to do so on the government’s tab.

The envelope also held his travel warrant, paper thick and substantial in his hand.  Soon it would no longer be a symbol of his departure but an actual train ticket carrying him off to training and then who knew where.  

Carefully, he folded the letter back up along its creases and tucked it back into the envelope with the travel voucher.  This was it, then.  He steeled himself with a deep breath, spine straightening and shoulders squaring in determination.  It was his duty.  It was his calling.  He would make himself a good soldier.  He would make his country proud.  

 

**2nd December 1939**

 

His journey started much how he imagined that it would.  In the same images he had seen in the newsreels that played before films at his local theatre, the platform was crowded with family members giving tearful farewells to other future soldiers who were no doubt headed off to their training as well.  There were parents and spouses, sweethearts and children forming little bubbles to themselves in the swell of noise and organised chaos around them.

The case he carried was small, just large enough for his few basic toiletries along with a change of socks and a nice shirt so he could put it on before checking in to make a good first impression.  There would be no need for a wardrobe where he was going, a freshly issued uniform would be his only option for the foreseeable future.  He hoped they would at least be warm, as the air had picked up quite the chill and, if anything he had been told was correct, the hills of Scotland would chill him to the bone this time of year if he wasn’t careful.  He wasn’t even sure if there _were_ hills in Scotland.

Mr. James had claimed he had once visited Scotland, but with the frequency that he spouted rubbish at the shop, Alex wasn’t sure if he could trust his word.  His grand story of meeting the queen boiled down to a stroll past Kensington Palace once on a trip to London when his wife had overheard the tale and set it straight.  If anyone entertained Mr. James by listening to him jabber on, it was well known that it had to be taken with a grain of salt.   

“Oh Lexie, how I wish you’d stay,” his mum sniffled against his ear.  He had to stoop down to hug her properly with their difference in height but he held her tight in a proper embrace for as long as he could stand it.  He would miss her hugs and affections while he was gone without any doubt.    

“I love you, mum.  I’ll write as often as I can,” he kissed her cheek and sniffed in a breath to keep his own eyes from watering.  A soldier didn’t cry.  A soldier couldn’t be weak.  

His father clapped him on the shoulder, his strong labourer’s hand gripping it just a little tighter than he would with a normal acknowledgement.  They shared a brief moment of eye contact, more emotion portrayed in that than he had seen from his father since he was a child, maybe ever.  Alex’s grandfather had been lost during the last war before he had even been born and he could see the undercurrent just below the surface that his father thought maybe he would be lost as well.  He wouldn’t be lost, though.  He would return a respected hero when the war was won and make his father proud of what he had accomplished.  It steeled his confidence and set a new goal for this endeavour.  

There had been a week after the arrival of his papers and the day he was set to leave, but it had flown by so quickly.  After he had alerted Mr. James about his departure and a neighbour had overheard the news, the gossip train had circled until it felt like he had to make the rounds with everyone who wanted to see him off.  He had taken a day to visit his sister and her husband and, by the time he was set to leave, he had barely collected his things.

There was a long journey ahead of him.  He would need to switch trains at Leeds and then again once he reached Glasgow.  His mother had tucked a thin book of poems into his pocket before they had left home though he wasn’t certain he would be able to concentrate on the words as the train raced across the country.  It was called “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by T.S. Elliott which seemed a title that would be a bit silly for him to be caught reading.  But he did enjoy poetry, always had, so he knew he would at least give it a glance somewhere along the way.  

The whistle blew loudly and the conductor called out, signalling it was time for the remaining passengers on the platform to board.  With an inflated show of confidence, he stood up straight and gave his parents one final goodbye and turned to climb onto the car behind him without letting himself hesitate.  Of course everyone on board fought for a spot near a window to wave and he struggled to find a gap to do the same.  As the train began to pull out of the station, he finally found a small corner in which to catch a last glimpse of his parents, catching the kiss blown by his mother to tuck into his breast pocket for when he needed it the most.  

The compartment he settled on held a couple of older men sitting around already with newspapers held in front of them.  He gladly took the empty seat beside them, welcoming the quiet ride he was sure would follow.  Back at home he had never had a problem fitting in with the rowdy lads when he wanted to, but there was an odd feeling of the calm before the storm that he felt he needed to appreciate while he could.  The scenery raced past the window in repeated sections of meadows and fields, passing small towns and pausing at several stations before they finally reached the point of his first transfer.  

He offered a small nod to the men when he departed, standing lost on the new platform for several moments before overhearing another party of boys his age headed to the same train.  He trailed behind them, waiting on a bench until the next Northern bound train was ready to board.  He wasn’t kept waiting for long.  

It was harder to keep his mind occupied on the next leg of his journey, the window no longer held his interest as it had before.  Soon he found himself in a world of Jellicle cats, each feline name and story more interesting than the one before.  He could see why his mum had enjoyed the writings and they reminded him of the shenanigans their neighbours marmalade could get herself into.  By the time they pulled into Glasgow he had read the poems cover to cover and tucked it back into his small case.  

When he boarded the train towards Stirling, he found himself sharing a compartment with a Scottish soldier in full regalia.  Complete with a kilt and all, Alex was immediately fascinated as he’d never actually seen a man wearing a kilt apart from photographs, and chatted with the man the entire ride towards the town.  He was also from the Argyll’s and he shared the first sense of camaraderie with a brother from the same division.  

Alex got off the train with his new acquaintance and found a truck assigned to transport the new recruits up to Stirling Castle.  The kilted man, who he found out was an officer of some kind, had Alex hang back with him and told the Corporal with the transport not to bother with him, that he would see to Alex instead.  He wasn’t sure what that meant but trusted that a rank above his status wouldn’t lead him astray, at least he hoped.  

They took a taxi to the guard house where the officer checked him in and then took him along to the kitchen.  The smell was wonderful, thick sizzling bacon and freshly baked bread with chunks of butter.  A hot cup of cocoa was soon in his hands and he wrapped his fingers around it to warm them from the cold air outside.  It was a stroke of luck when he discovered that the man he had shared his evening with was the Quarter Master and, to his delight, was told to help himself to anything he wanted from the kitchen.  He didn’t need more permission than that and loaded himself a plateful.  

He found a place to sit at one of the metal tables in the corner, shoving the hot meal into his mouth like he had been starved.  Of course his mother had sent him with a couple sandwiches and an apple for his lunch and supper on the ride, but he hadn’t been able to space them out over the journey as he was meant to.  It was late, nearly nine at night and his stomach was in the routine of being filled long before that hour.  He even went back to steal another thick slice of bread and wasn’t even scolded for doing so.  

The Quarter Master returned after some time carrying several blankets and handed them over to Alex.  

“Find yourself some space in the Chapel down here for the night.  I’ll have someone see you up to the barracks in the morning with the others.  There’s several other lads already there that will be headed up with you tomorrow.”  

It was small, the Chapel, the floor spaces taken up by other bodies already bedded down for the night.  There was a billiard table off to the side that stood out, only one lad spread out on top.  He was writing as he laid there, but there was still plenty of space beside him to make up another bed.  

“Room for another up there?” he asked after he had navigated the maze of bodies over to the table.  

“I reckon so,” the boy nodded and scooted himself and his blanket closer to the edge against the wall.  

“Alex Styles,” Alex held out his hand to shake, dropping his folded blankets onto the felt of the table.  

“Logan Thompson,” the other held out his hand to shake with a grip that was firm but friendly enough, “What’s your story?”

“Headed up to training at the castle in the morning it seems,” Alex replied while spreading one of his blankets out as a bed.  “What about yourself?”

“Headed there myself, came up from Pendleton and missed the last ride up for the night.”

He smiled warmly at Logan and gave a small laugh that he would find a neighbour all the way in Scotland.  To be such a long journey from home, it felt safe to have a local lad here with him, someone from just up the road.  It put him at ease that he wouldn’t be the only outsider like he feared when he had seen his post.  

Before they fell asleep, Alex accepted a blank postcard from Logan, writing out his first note home before settling in for the night.  

 

_Dear Mum & Dad,  _

_Arrived to Stirling as expected.  I have already met_  
a lad from Pendleton which already reminds me  
of home.  The food is surprisingly good and the  
conditions more welcoming than I imagined.  I report  
for training in the morning.  I will write when I can.  

_Love your son,  
Alex_

 

**25th December 1939**

 

_Dear Mum & Dad, _

_If it weren’t for the fact that I know I am not home for Christmas dinner, you’d hardly know it was Christmas at all.  I received your Christmas card and tucked it into my diary to keep with me.  Some companies were given a week’s leave to head home for the holidays but seeing as we have an expedited training schedule and have not been here as long, we were only granted a 24 hour pass.  I imagine that was only given so the officers could have a day to themselves as well.  Several lads were local enough to make it home for Christmas dinner and be back by morning but most of us have just been left with some spare time at the camp.  Logan (the lad from Pendleton, we have become friends) and I hitched a ride to the next village over where the church ladies were serving up a meal for the soldiers who couldn’t get home.  With the A &SH here, there are a lot of us.  I couldn’t tell you much about the meal as it was overshadowed by the Christmas cookies and cakes of which I had more than my fair share.  Logan reckoned I would be able to charm them into giving me a whole pie since they all loved me so much.  I didn’t try as my cheeks were already sore from being pinched by the end of the evening and I could hardly understand what they were saying with their thick accents.  Spirits have been high and we all sang carols until our voices were hoarse and we moved on to the pub.  I dare say some of the lads are likely to regret their festivities in the morning!  Someone found some fireworks but we weren’t allowed to set them off.  Everyone was very disappointed. _

_It doesn’t feel like there’s a war on, especially today, but we are being trained with a sense of urgency that weighs heavily on all of us.  When we arrived we were ordered to the training camp at Raplock below The Castle which is packed full.  I was sorted into a group of 30 privates for the rest of our drills before we were issued our rifles, equipment and uniforms.  I look like a proper soldier now.  There is a lot of physical training and I’ve found that I quite enjoy it while some of the other lads grumble about the early wakeup calls and long runs before breakfast.  At first us English lads nearly found ourselves being disciplined because we weren’t able to understand our Scottish NCO’s thick accent but I’ve quickly caught on.  I’ve been called up to be on point for our squad more times than not.  The discipline comes easier to me than to some of the others but I suppose I feel a sense of pride in what I’m doing.  We are told to expect to be pulled from training as reinforcements to France at any time and I feel determined to learn as much as I can while I am still able.  I had never held a rifle or any type of firearm before I arrived here, as you well know, and, seeing as this is quite important as a soldier, I have a lot of things to be trained on.  Beyond that information, it feels quite isolated from the war and from civilisation out here.  Logan has a brother in the RAF and has received a few letters from him with some newspaper clippings about what has been happening.  I suspect this war will be a short one and we will find we riled the country into a tizzy for nothing though I have been quite impressed with how prepared we all seem to be.  You don’t need to worry about me.  I’ll be riding home with the victory parade before we know it!  If we do end up in France, I hope I will be able to see the Eiffel Tower.  It will probably be the only chance I have to see it with my own eyes._

_Give my best to sis and let her know I’ll write when I have the chance._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**25th January 1940**

 

_Dear Mum & Dad, _

_Our training has come to an abrupt halt as we have received word that reinforcements are needed in Northern Europe.  I am afraid I am not allowed to say where we are headed though it sounds like it may be in the thick of things.  What I can say is that I have found that seasickness is not kind to me.  Ours, along with many other companies, probably hundreds of men, were loaded on a large transporter yesterday to make our way across the channel.  Logan and I went below to claim a bunk for the journey which is where I am now.   I think we were all expecting our journey to be a short one but it is taking longer than expected, we are moving so slowly.  Logan believes we may be trying to skirt the enemy but without a map or sense of direction below decks, we have no way of knowing where we are nor when we shall arrive.  I have occupied myself with thinking of the ease we have now before being thrust onto the front lines.  The food is good on the ship and I have a bit of envy for the Royal Navy but only a little since my stomach is never at rest._

_You will think I am downhearted by the tone of this letter but I am not, only homesick a great deal, more so now that the comforts of training have been left behind.  We were able to have football and cricket matches and even some boxing, though I kept myself to the sidelines for that.  I remember how upset you were, mum, when I got into that scuffle in grammar school and found it difficult to find the desire to throw a punch, even for the fun of it.  I was especially good with our shooting matches and have received praise from our commanding officers on my steady hands and careful aim, though I fear those talents will not be of much use with chaos around me in real battle.  They have promoted me to Lance Corporal and I trust their faith in me.  I wear my stripe with pride._

_Thank you for the woollen socks you sent as a gift for my birthday.  I am glad I received them before we departed.  I will no longer be a teenager in a week but don’t expect that the day will hold any special celebration.  The boys were quite jealous when I opened the package and I will appreciate them even more in the times we are unable to find warmth indoors.  Who knows what the conditions will be when we arrive but surely not as stable as the barracks.  Pray for a mild winter and no snow!  They have issued us heavy overcoats so it seems they fear the worst._

_I do not know when I will next be able to write so expect some time to pass before I do.  Please give sis my love and congratulations on the new job.  I know she will do well._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**21st March 1940**

 

_Mum & Dad, _

_We have been doing quite a lot of walking since we arrived.  That is what stands out the most.  We have some jeeps and vehicles in our convoy and we were at first transported in cattle trucks but most of our travel has been on foot, even through the night at times.  You may not think it, but it is possible to sleep while marching, only startled awake by bumping into the one in front of you or one behind stumbling into you.  We covered thirty miles one night.  The roads are at times congested with the troops but also with the evacuees that carry bundles of what possessions they were able to save.  It makes me think of our family and what we would deem the most important to pack up.  In any case, it is a strange feeling to be marching onward when the masses are heading in the opposite direction.  On occasion we offer empty seats to some of the worse off to take them at least up the road a bit when we are able.  There is not much else we can do to help them.  It is hard to watch it all happen and not realise we are partially to blame for their displacement._

_It has been quite cold and I struggle with keeping my boots dry when the weather is not ideal.  We have seen a lot of cold rainy days.  But I will not dwell on the hardships when I write.  I am fortunate to be unharmed and generally well._

_We have paused for a few days to regain our strength and regroup and have been taken in by the French in this village.  Some of us are staying in the basement of a married couple with two children.  A girl 8 years old and a boy that is 6.  We have been having quite a laugh trying to understand each other.  Some of the French I learned in school has been coming back but I’m afraid I don’t remember as much as I should.  I have not yet seen the Eiffel Tower but who knows where our path will end up leading us.  There is still a chance.  We joined up with some Canadians at one point that had marched through Paris for a ceremonial parade.  They said the sight is grand.  One is not a soldier but from the press.  He trudges on and carries a rifle just as we do but says the story needs to be told even if it ends up that he is not around to be the one to tell it.  He carries a camera tucked into his pack and is always scribbling onto his notepad.  He said I reminded him of his brother that he thinks is also somewhere in France.  I hadn’t realised how many commonwealths were already in action._

_Make sure to pass the news on to sis and give her a hug for me next time you see her._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**25th May 1940**

 

The reality of war was nothing that Alex could have prepared himself for.  The magnitude of pain and suffering had not been ingrained in them through training and he was sure that nothing but being immersed in the experience as they had been could have.  Training hadn’t included how to build up walls around any of it either or that they would be a necessary part of survival.  They had started their march across France with over 700 men in their battalion and by the time they had assembled along the Belgian-French border, nearly half of them had been lost in combat along the way.  Being able to turn off your own humanity as comrades fell beside you and as you aimed your weapon at the mirror image of yourself on the opposing line was essential in order to not go mad with the reality of it all.  Those who weren’t able to do so quickly became the victims themselves, a constant reminder of their kill or be killed environment despite any moral struggle.  

The enemy was advancing swiftly and it was difficult not to overhear the apprehension as their lines strategically fell back further by the day.  

They had been under heavy fire around the clock and it had wore them thin and taken them out.  Sneak attacks overnight when it had been quiet during waking hours and then more waves during light after long stretches of no sleep were pushing them all to their breaking point.  It became a constant blur with no way to measure time.  Alex now recognised his cocky and uneducated approach to voluntarily joining up without hesitation, and it came with a heavy regret in their worst moments.  Men had fallen beside him, many of them, and he approached each day expecting the next bullet to have his name engraved in the metal, ominous signals of his fate flying past with a consistency that was exhausting.  But another day brought the sun up over the horizon for him once again and he greeted it expecting it to be the last time he would.  Sometimes he hoped it would be the last time, though he never let it show.

Each time he felt optimistic about their position, a new obstacle would arise unexpectedly in front of them.  They had been overtaken suddenly by an invasion of a family in carts just the day before.  It had appeared to be families returning to their homes but that had not been so, it had been a trap.  They had narrowly escaped the ambush, a bullet hitting the edge of Alex’s tin helmet, knocking it off his head.  It had whizzed by so closely to his face that the sound of metal on metal kept his ears ringing for hours.  

But they kept on despite the setbacks, attempting to keep morale high though it always seemed to be waning.  

It was on a quiet morning in May when their commanding officer approached their small group and called everyone to attention.  

“We’ve just received word to fall back.  We’ve been cut off to the South and to the West and our current position is no longer one we can defend.  Orders are to fall back to the coast for evacuation.  It’s every man for himself to head towards Dunkirk.”

“It’s what?” rang out a chorus of confusion around them as they stared back at their superior, formalities momentarily abandoned in their shock.  

“Enemy panzer groups have broken through the French border and have cut us off from the South,” he repeated more sternly, “You have your issued rifle and your bayonet.  There will be no more rations and no more supplies being delivered to us, it’s every man for himself to make it to Dunkirk for evacuation.  Best of luck lads.”

“We can’t just surrender!  We’re here to win this war!” Alex protested defiantly, rifle gripped so tightly in his hand that his joints were beginning to protest.  His squad had looked to him as a leader, at least in spirit if not in rank, since they had arrived in France.  He had held strong for them even when he felt like breaking.  He wouldn’t allow them to retreat like cowards after all they had been through, after each time they had rallied after a setback.  Not now.  Not after everything they had been through.  Not after everything they had sacrificed.  There were times when he wanted it to be over but not this way, never this way.  They were told it would be a swift and successful operation.  They were supposed to be victorious.  They were supposed to win.  

“This battle’s over so unless you fancy yourself a target, you’d best be on the move.”

And with that, the discussion was over.  There was a stunned silence while they processed what they had been told, watching their commanding officer leave them stranded on the side of the road somewhere in Northern France.  Alex wasn’t exactly sure where they had ended up.  Their squad of fifteen had been diminished to only five and they all turned to look at each other with varying degrees of astonishment.  

They continued to stand where they were and watched while the artillery, vehicles and other equipment that had been part of their brigade were lined up close together in the middle of an empty field.  At first they were confused with this strategy until they realised a target was being set up for their own bombers to hit and destroy.  They were sabotaging their own equipment to keep it from falling into the opposition’s hands.  That was when the orders truly began to set in.  Their country had abandoned them, had left them there with only the supplies they carried with them on their bodies.  Everything he had fought for, pushed himself to the limits for, all the suffering he had seen and endured.  It had all been in the name of defending a country he had held so much pride in.  Alex had never felt so defeated.  

Eventually they had no choice but to turn and obey the direction to abandon their position.  Occasionally there were soldiers passing by from various divisions and soon they had lost the others they had started out with.  Alex and Logan, the two young men from the same place back home, now alone together in a foreign country with nothing but their will to survive and make it back together.  

The pair made it up the road a fair distance before stumbling across an army motorcycle.  To their surprise, the engine growled to life and, without hesitation, they both hopped on and took off to the North with glee.  They had barely made it several kilometres when the engine began to sputter before cutting out completely.  They tried to revive it for a short time before the fear of attracting attention with the noise caused them to abandon it where it fell on the road.  Dust was rustled up around them, accompanied by the sound of quick fire bullets and they dived into the ditch and crawled along on their elbows to avoid the attack.  

They escaped like this several times on the dirt roads, always on guard and surveying their surroundings.  Nothing was safe and without others to cover them, the journey was a dangerous one.

It wasn’t long after that they began to see the true devastation of a defeated British Army.  At first it was a field of bombed out equipment much like the one they had left and then the scattered personal effects of soldiers who had left everything behind in a rush.  Convoys of burned out skeletons of lorries lined the roadways, destroyed by their own bombers or fires started in the last attempts at making everything unusable to the enemy.  It felt like a graveyard of all their hopes for victory.  

For miles and miles they encountered the same sight, unpleasant reminders of their failure with each tired step.  They scavenged through the wreckage, saving for themselves whatever food and ammunition that had been left in usable condition though it wasn’t much.  Alex looked away when Logan looted the bodies of fallen soldiers, something he didn’t quite have the stomach to do for himself.  Their uniforms became heavy on their frames, pockets stuffed full of all the bullets and provisions they could carry.  If they happened upon the enemy, they would shoot until the last of it was spent.  They would hold their ground until they had nothing left to give.  The Allied forces may be giving up but it didn’t mean they were going to.  

They stumbled upon an abandoned bag full of mail headed for the front lines, still filled with letters to the soldiers yet to be delivered along with a few waiting to be sent home.  Alex hefted it onto one shoulder, carrying it along with them as they trudged on.  He couldn’t leave so many little bundles of personal information, feelings and hope out in the open to fall into the hands of just anyone.  It felt like a small duty to fulfill in the midst of everything.  

When they found a small cove of trees hidden from the road, they stopped for the night hoping they would not be found.  It was set back from the main path just enough to give them faith that they would not.  They shared a tin of corned beef and some crackers between them, only eating enough to quiet their rumbling bellies from their limited supply.  There was no way of knowing how long they would be out on their own so they rationed what little they had.  

They took turns keeping watch though their sleep was light, neither feeling rested when the sun crept over the horizon.  

 

**26th May 1940**

 

They could have been taking a leisurely stroll by how quiet the day had been.  It was all too easy for Alex and Logan to drop their guard with the sun shining happily down on them and the wildflowers blooming in the fields and ditches on each side.  That is if a leisurely stroll included the sickly sweet smell of rotting animal carcasses and abandoned household and military items scattered about randomly like that of a ghost town.  It wasn’t always just the smell of animals, but it was necessary to not acknowledge that aspect as they carried on.  The dust covered open eyes of children stilled forever and the bodies in civilian clothes that appeared to be sleeping if you didn’t look close enough were hard enough to ignore.

They pause in one of the blooming spring patches around midday, Alex picking the thin stemmed yellow flowers and stringing them into a crown to set on top of Logan’s hair.  They both had a laugh while Alex fashioned one for himself and they kept them on until they began to wilt and droop, dropping to the ground and left behind just like the rest of their company’s equipment, strategies and optimism.

By the time evening began to roll in, their stomachs growled angrily and clenched with hunger.  They had eaten the last of the tinned food they had swiped for breakfast and an early lunch and their mood was waning.  Up ahead they spotted a farmhouse and, after carefully scouting the place out, found it abandoned by anyone, friend or enemy.  

“I’d say we camp out here for the night,” Logan suggested, flopping down onto one of the chairs pulled up to the small table while Alex checked out the rest of the compact kitchen.  

“Looks like we’re the first ones to get here.  Cupboards haven’t been gutted.”  He opened up one to find some small seasoning tins and another to find several jars of canned tomatoes.  “We might as well, we’ve nothing else to lose.”  

They hit the jackpot in the root cellar when they continued to investigate, the family’s supply of garden grown vegetables and fruits lined up in glass jars just waiting for the hungry soldiers.  They loaded up their arms and their packs and prepared for a feast unlike anything they’d had for weeks.  They didn’t have any bread or meat but they couldn’t find it in them to care.  None of it was coated in salt or a tasteless mush and right then it was better than a Christmas dinner.  

They enjoyed a game of cribbage as they reclined with their stomachs stuffed full, belts loosened and jackets shed to hang on the backs of their chairs.  There was always a lingering anxiety and alertness that lined the surface of everything they did, ears always perked and any motion monitored out the corner of their eyes.  Beyond that, it could have been a casual night in with a friend before the war had taken hold of their lives.  They discovered a few bottles of homemade wine and drank directly from them until they were laughing with tears in their eyes.  

Logan disappeared into one of the bedrooms and came back with a woman’s hat atop his head and white gloves that barely fit halfway up his palms of his gesturing hands.  Alex barked out a laugh, bent in half with it until he nearly fell to the floor.  

They stumbled back into the bedroom and began to pull dresses out of the small wardrobe set up in the corner of the room.  Half the contents seemed to have been emptied in a hurry but there were still clothing in various sizes and before long their own uniforms were shed onto the floor and women’s Sunday best pulled on instead.  They didn’t dare to turn on a lamp or light a candle for fear of drawing attention to themselves so they danced around and sang merrily together in the dimming light of dusk.  

“I’m proper swacked,” Logan slurred and leaned his weight against Alex in a sloppy hug, any walls they had held up between each other in their uniforms torn down in their state of inebriation.  They held each other in their borrowed dresses, their fancy hats knocked to the floor by their feet.  

“We’re not going to make it home,” Logan mumbled into Alex’s shoulder, more a statement of realisation rather than a forlorn lament.

“Sure we are,” Alex answered, though he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.  They still had miles to go to make it to Dunkirk and since they had been separated from any other sign of friendly life, the odds didn’t seem to be in their favour or that they were even travelling in the right direction.  Neither of them spoke French and the road signs gave them little guidance without much knowledge about the region.

The room had become too heavy under Logan’s drunken whispered confession and his brain was too hazy to deal with it.  Instead he gave Logan a hard smack on his bum and twisted from his grip to run away.  The tension immediately dissolved as they chased each other around the room, knocking over furniture and tripping over clothing along the way.  

They eventually ended up on the bed, tangled up in a mess of limbs and frills laughing together until the exhaustion finally overcame them.  

 

**28th May 1940**

 

The sight was astounding.  The elation they had felt upon finally reaching the town of Dunkirk was quickly dashed by the sight of hundreds, no, _thousands_ , of soldiers already collected on the beach as they came up over the dunes.  Thick columns of black smoke rose high into the atmosphere from various points over the water and across the beach, the air tinged with the smell of burning oil so strong it could be tasted even from where they stood.  Massive warships were turned on their side and sinking or already washing up towards the shore, masts sticking up from the waves like phantom pirate ships, a vision of destruction that rivalled any he had seen on land.  

The town behind them was lit up in flames as well, the shell of it reduced to charred piles of rubble where buildings once stood.  The streets were littered with everyday items blown from houses or left in the scramble to evacuate before they fell victim to the battle.  A chair was sitting upright on one side of the street, like someone had just stood up and would shortly be returning, just across from it an open suitcase lay, a trail of odds and ends in a line leading up to it, left behind in haste.  

Just as Alex opened his mouth to speak, the terrifying sound of sirens overtook them before the dive bombers swooped into their airspace, seemingly from out of nowhere.  It was a distinctive sound they had heard time after time and their blood pressure spiked instantly upon being exposed to it again, knowing what was to come.  Logan dove to the sand just as Alex dropped, their hands moving to cover their heads as the bombs began to hit the sand in the rhythm of a grandfather clock deliberately chiming the hour.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  

Machine gun fire sprayed down over them, pitting the sand just feet away from where they cowered, completely exposed as easy targets in their dark uniforms against the light coloured dunes.  The cries of men filled the small gaps of sound between the explosions and rose up to their vantage point to invade their ears.  It was something that Alex had learned to tune out for self preservation but could never unhear.  

The howling sirens disappeared off into the distance after a time that seemed suspended longer than its actual measure and they all began to lift up from their positions hesitantly.  Alex sat back on his heels and surveyed the beach, blobs of darkness littered across the vacationer’s paradise, transformed into a canvas of death.  Bodies were everywhere, not all of them alive.  

“They’ve drawn us here to pick us off like fish in a barrel!  They’ve left us to die!  They’ve drawn us here to die!” Alex gritted out through clenched teeth.  His eyes felt rough with each blink, sand caked to the sweat on his face and lips and filling his nostrils.  An angry swipe of his hand just served to drag another handful across his face, abrasive texture irritating his tight sun and wind-burned skin, already uncomfortable from months of exposure.  In all the weeks he had gone without a bath in the field, he would take that feeling over this.  His scalp itched from the grains trapped deep in strands of hair and his uniform rubbed him raw from the shoulders down.  The wind whipped up around them in a small sandstorm, clogging each breath on top of the rest.  

There were no more words to be spoken as the pair sat dumbfounded.  The lines of men stretched out into water, large swells coming up to the furthest soldier’s necks.  It took a while to realise they were waiting their turn to board the small boats that were rowing out to the navy ships dotted out along the harbour.  They were easily capsized in the rough waves as the men attempted to pull themselves aboard and they watched the scramble to right them, bailing the water out with their helmets at a pace that didn’t seem fast enough, organised chaos that looked bleak at best.  

The pair glanced at each other with the same look of hopelessness, neither one able to spot their best option.  Off to the side they could see a section of men laying out on stretchers, the wounded  that were sitting ducks, just as the rest of them but unable to attempt to save themselves on their own.  

With no other escape route, they descended the dunes and took up the back of one of the lines.  No one chanced a look at them, all facing forward and awaiting their turn out to sea.  It all felt very sombre, especially with the bodies of their own mere feet away from them, an ominous reminder that they might not leave France alive.  With the odds against them, it seemed their likely fate, though they didn’t speak of it out loud.  

The tides came and went as their only marker of time, a loop of the same events on repeat in front of them like being forced to card through the same flip book over and over again.  The water came in to the beach and then washed back out with an extreme shift in depth with each cycle, wave lapping at their boots and then slipping so far out that it seemed unfathomable that it had ever reached them.  

Eventually they could hear the hum of engines on the breeze once again and the tension heightened in the crowd around them.  The whole row of men shifted in their places, aware of the droning coming closer, but there was a pregnant pause before any of them chose to acknowledge it.  There wasn’t much they could do anyway.  As soon as one soldier turned their face to the sky, they all looked up as if on command, thousands of helmets tilting towards the threat.  

The first wave of bombers, engines a distinctive wub-wub-wub, passed in the distance above the fleet.  They watched in horror as a bomb was dropped from one of their bays, a dark cylinder against the pale sky squealing as it descended as if in slow motion.  A collective gasp of breath fell over them before it collided with a destroyer in a catastrophic explosion that seemed to hit their ears in a delayed wave of sound reaching them like a heavy burst of wind.  

They were all so distracted by the unbelievable sight that they barely noticed the dive bombers until their screaming sirens signalled their descent above them.  The soldiers scrambled with nowhere to go, no shelter or cover for the attack about to rain down on them.  Alex followed Logan’s sprint, a few paces behind him but trusting his lead in a blind panic.  

He could hear the bombs dropping behind them in numbers he didn’t bother to count, each one dropping closer to his feet that struggled to find traction in the loose sand.  He tripped and fell to the ground, struggling to free himself from the cold and bloody body that had brought him down.

“LOGAN!” he screamed out uselessly, finding his feet and his mate who was now meters away.  

The sand was suddenly blown high in front of him, the force knocking him backwards and stealing the air from his lungs.  He clawed at his burning chest and gasped for his breath with blurry vision, no longer able to see his friend running into the distance.  

“Logan!” he screeched barely above a whisper with his short wheezy gasps and crawled his way forward at a snail’s pace that to him seemed like a scramble.  

But it wasn’t Logan that he found as he made his way forward.  Instead he pulled himself to a crater circled with ripped rags of dark tan wool and chunks of raw meat that made his stomach lurch violently.  He had seen the aftermath of an explosion enough times that his brain didn’t even need to process the scene to know what had happened.  

Alex found himself shaking uncontrollably.  He could sense men around him but couldn’t bring anything to focus, couldn’t move his eyes away from the sand drenched in a bright red.  

“Here, mate,” he heard and felt something being stuck against his lips.  He took it on autopilot between pinched fingers.  A lit cigarette.  He had never smoked in his life but took a long drag, sputtering out a violent cough that snapped him out of the trance he had been stuck in.  His hands still shook as he raised it again, pulling the smoke into his lungs as a welcome distraction.  

He could feel hands on him, most likely looking for any wounds since he hadn’t yet been able to register their questions nor answer them, all the voices muddled around him in a hum of static.  Eventually they stopped once they were satisfied with finding no blood of his own, though someone stayed seated at his side and passed him another cigarette once the first had started to scorch the sides of his fingers.  

It continued like this until his shaking dulled to a slight tremor and the sun had set on the carnage around him.  He couldn’t help but think that in these, their final hours, the sun had already set on them as well.  

 

**29th May 1940**

 

Alex’s hands twitched as he stood on the beach, eyes darting back and forth in a nervous form of restlessness he had never experienced before.  He couldn’t turn it off.  He had already chain smoked his share of cigarettes and for never having smoked in his life, he had taken to it quickly.  If he had been of clearer mind, he might have recognised that his symptoms directly correlated with those actions but then again, maybe not.  His racing heart and paranoia were completely justified as the bombers made passes across the fleet of ships, Gerrys closed in on them just beyond the dunes and the Luftwaffe came in terrifying waves above their heads.  It never stopped.

He’d lost his pack in one of the bombing frenzies which meant the last jar of peaches from the farmhouse, his last bit of food, had to be written off as a loss.  Maybe Logan had even held his pack, he had no way of knowing, no way of tracing his steps.  

They had waited, disappointed over and over again when they were turned away from one of the boats or not even making it close enough to try.  Alex couldn’t wait his turn like a child in a lunch line, there was no place for manners here, not anymore.  If it was truly every man for himself then it was time to make a move, time to take his fate into his own hands.  

Jittery hands at his sides, Alex stepped out of the line and with a tunnel vision for the sea, began to walk forward towards the white cresting waves.  He had watched others make a swim for it, some making it aboard a vessel while others drifted back defeated.  He chose not to acknowledge the third way the soldiers ended up back on the beach.  

The water was a cold shock as it rushed around and penetrated his boots.  His trousers had held various states of dampness since he had arrived here, but that was a chill he had grown numb to.  This hit him like pin pricks and his muscles seized up on instinct.  He forced himself waist deep before giving himself just a moment to adjust, steeling his resolve while he searched out the boat he was most likely to reach.  The harbour had been filled with small civilian boats ferrying back and forth to the ships that weren’t shallow enough to move in.  He locked his eyes on a pleasure cruiser bouncing in the water and filled his lungs with a few last easy breaths.  

He dove forward and began to swim but instead of propelling forward, he immediately found himself struggling not to sink.  He flailed to keep his head above the water, gasping as his heavy uniform worked against him.  Waves crashed over his head while he struggled to kick off his boots, one after the other finally falling off his feet like lead anchors.  His body was being tossed around, sinking in the water like a weight yet twisting like he weighed nothing at all.

His hand hit something hard against his chest and he belatedly remembered the ammunition he had hoarded in all his pockets.  It was a fumble to find and release what he had but soon broke the surface again with a wave of relief.  He had been carried in the opposite direction of the boat he was headed for but wasted no time kicking his freed feet and scooping at the cold water.  Swimming wasn’t something he often did so he wasn’t the strongest in the sport but had always been able to hold his own in strength.  Nothing compared to the adrenaline that pulsed through him now, as the other option was death without a lifeguard to pull him to safety, and he was not giving in.  

There was a burn in his lungs and a weakness in his arms but he pushed until he nearly rammed into the boat’s hull straight on.  

“Up you come, then,” two men in civvies were reaching down to him and he grabbed hold the best he could while they struggled to haul him aboard.  He collapsed down on the deck and it was only after his chest was no longer heaving that he realised he had lost his trousers somewhere along the way.  

As more soldiers approached the boat, Alex stood on shaking legs to make room, wet hands gripping the railing with white knuckles.  He could hear the hum growing louder overhead, the nearly constant soundtrack of fear over the last few days.  He squeezed his eyes closed against the urge to look up, not wanting to see his death approaching if there was something strapped to the underbelly meant for him.  

But then the screaming sirens pierced through the air, deafening even as he slapped his hands to his ears and reflectively looked towards the sound.

He saw the splashes in the water before he saw the plane like large rain drops in a puddle during a downpour and they were following a swift and steady path straight towards them.  His ankle twisted painfully as he rotated and squatted there on the deck, shaking hands covering his head just in time to hear the ping and crack of bullets piercing the boat and men screaming out in agony.  

It wasn’t until he was being manhandled by another soldier down onto the deck that he realised one of those voices was his own.  It was hysterical and shrill yet even as he wondered how he was even able to make such a sound he was powerless to stop it.

“Medic!  Do we have a medic!?” he heard being shouted while someone was ripping open his soaking wet shirt.

“Anything? Do we have ANYTHING!?” the shouts were becoming more urgent and he was suddenly so very cold.  He felt his teeth chatter and he wasn’t screaming anymore simply because he couldn’t.  His body was shivering and his skin felt wet in places that had already started to dry, a warmth spreading over those places while the rest of his heat was draining out of him.  

“Just hang on, focus on me, okay?”  There was a face above him but he didn’t recognise it, not enough there for him to focus on, nothing he could make sense of. “We’re going to get you to hospital.”

He didn’t want to go to hospital.  He just wanted to sleep.  He gave into it with a blissful serenity that had no place in war.  He welcomed it.  

 

**7th June 1940**

 

The light was bright and overwhelming, even from behind his eyelids.  It made his eye sockets ache and he tried to flinch away from it but with his eyes already closed, there wasn’t much he could do.  He lifted his arms to rub at them, shield them from the ache but his arm got caught up with something in the motion.

He was tied up, caught and tangled in a web of ropes and he began to fight against the restraints.  He thrashed, his whole body overtaken with pain but he wasn’t going to give in.  If he had been captured by the enemy he wasn’t going to lie down and take it, he wasn’t going to let them torture him, he wasn’t going to let them win without a fight.  He couldn’t move his legs or at least he thought he was but nothing was happening.  They must have had him strapped down, bindings tight enough that he couldn’t budge an inch.  He tried to open his eyes to see what he was up against but the bright glare was too much and had him screaming and cowering back against the blinding force.  

“Doctor!  Doctor!” he heard shouted around him, the voice feminine and in distress and suddenly strong hands were grabbing his limbs and holding him down.  He tried to wrench himself free but the grips were too strong and he felt so weak against them.  It was unnaturally painful and he again tried to at least squint open his eyes to see what they were using to inflict such torture to his body.  If they were going to end him, he prayed that it came quick.  They had stripped him of his uniform, he could tell by the absent weight of wool he had grown used to and the chill of his bare skin to the air.  He had no hope of finding a means to end it himself without any of his gear.  

“Now calm down son,” a calm but authoritative voice commanded, “You’re safe.”

But was he?  In this game of war he wasn’t sure who he could trust, especially the blind trust that was being asked of him right then.  He continued to struggle.  

“Add the morphine drip,” he heard the same voice instruct and oh god they were going to drug him.  

“He’s ripped his stitches, sir.”

“Put him out before he rips himself open.”

Everything started to sound hazy around him, blurred on the edges like a candy floss dream.  He tried to struggle but his muscles did nothing more than twitch as a heavy exhaustion overwhelmed him and he went limp with it.  There was still a swirl of sound registering to him, frantic voices and hands on his body and a coldness in his bones that rivalled the winter marches in cold rain.

“I can’t stop the bleeding, sir.”

The voices faded out into the void until there was nothing.  


	2. the recovery

**12th June 1940**

 

There was too much movement around him.  It was like the scuttle of large mice moving about, just enough blur of consistent white noise to keep him on an anxious edge.  He needed it it to stop.  He needed the motion to stop.  Everything needed to stop.  

There was an ache in his head that wasn’t exactly a pain but not a pleasant feeling either.  His brain felt swollen and bulky in his skull and maybe puffy like it had been replaced with fluffy cotton.  Cotton.  Just like his mouth.  Parched and dry, the insides of his cheeks adhering to his teeth and his lips cracking like earth in a drought.  

The buzz around him slowly became sharper, more defined, the hum of conversations, the clink of metal, the rustle of fabric, the click of shoes on hard flooring.  They sounded out of place to him, something from a distant memory that used to be so familiar.  He must be in a dream.  The ghost of Christmas past must be waiting to take him through glimpses of his life before taking him up to St Peter at the golden gates of heaven.  If he was that lucky.  He had done things he wasn’t proud of; he had had broken into someone’s home and stolen their property, he had watched a man die at the end of his rifle.  He had run off to war without comprehending the murder it endorsed.  

Perhaps the ghost was here to remind him of who he once had been, what a good boy he once was, how pure.  A last glimpse before damning him to the fiery depths, or perhaps to spend eternity on the sandy beaches of Dunkirk, a hell he had already experienced.    

Tears were slipping past his closed lids at a steady pace and he whimpered in fear of what was awaiting him.  If only he had been given the chance to repent before his final moments, if only he had been less selfish as he tried to save himself at the end.  Maybe then he might have stood a chance on this, his judgement day.  But he hadn’t.  He had let his comrade die alone while he cowered away only thinking of himself.  

He felt the surface below him dip like it did when his mum would sit on the side of his bed as a child, a warm hand sliding into his and squeezing gently.  It felt so substantial and grounding compared to his other senses that he found himself squeezing it right back just to cling to something that felt real.

“Are you finally coming back to us, soldier?” a gentle voice asked and he wondered for a moment if the question was directed towards him.  His eyelashes fluttered to give him a slivered view of a fishbowl world, lines and shapes and colours swimming in the tears pooling there.  A second hand rubbed the top of his, encasing it in a sandwich of soft and comforting touch.  

His eyes didn’t want to cooperate, stubbornly rolling back and fighting against the haze of sleep that wanted to take him back.  

“That’s it, take your time,” the voice came over him gently, reminding him of the tone his mum used when he was sick as a boy, nurturing but not condescending.  He finally blinked his eyes open to a stark white ceiling, not the puffy white of clouds or the darkness of hell he had been expecting.  

“You’re in Sutten Emergency Hospital, love,” she squeezed his hand again, “Went through a bit of a rough spot but we got you patched right up.”

Slowly, he lolled his head to the side and he could now see the tall white nurses hat resting on top of her dark pinned up hair and her white apron bearing the red cross.  Her words were simple enough, he knew that they should make sense but it wasn’t clicking together.  He stared blankly at her face, her rosy round cheeks and kind eyes and soft smile and she really was a lovely girl, probably not much older than himself.  But he wasn’t sure how this fit into the burning path to hell he was waiting to be escorted down.  

“How are you feeling, love?  Are you in much pain?” she was still grounding him with her soft hands and he wanted to answer.  He parted his lips but nothing would come out, his throat sandpaper and his tongue feeling like a shrivelled raisin.  

“Shall I get you some water?” she asked and he nodded, curling his fingers against the cold when she released her warm grasp to fill a tin cup from her cart for him.  

“Up you go,” she talked to him while she slid an arm under his shoulders.  He tried to help her by sitting up but found that he couldn’t move more than weakly lifting his head.  She paid no mind, lifting him up just enough to prop several pillows behind his back so he would be able to drink without choking.  She retrieved the cup and, with a gentle hand on the back of his head, raised it to his lips and helped him to take a sip.  The first did nothing to moisten his mouth but after a few more he was finally able to clear his throat and move his tongue again though it still felt like a dried out slug.  

“What happened?” he tried to croak out but even to his own ears it sounded like a collection of uncomfortable noises.  It must have been enough, though, and the nurse sat back on the edge of his bed and again took his hand.  

“I couldn’t say for sure, but you came to us by way of Dunkirk, several wounds from bullets or shrapnel straight through you.  You’ve been out since you arrived as far as I’ve seen you.  My name’s Mary and I’ll be taking care of you for a bit.  What’s yours?”

He tried to force out his name though it sounded more like “Axe” from his raw vocal chords.  She must have already known, of course she had, as she addressed him politely with the correct name.

“I know it isn’t pleasant, Alex, but I’m going to have to check your dressings.  Just lay still for me and I’ll be as quick as possible.”  She gave him a reassuring smile as she stood up, pulling her cart closer to the bedside.  

She folded the sheet and blanket covering him down to his waist, respectfully keeping his modesty but just barely.  He might as well have been completely nude in front of her when she raised his hospital gown up to his chest.  The line of the sheet sat so low on his hips that it left little to the imagination but when he shifted his eyes down to look, he could see why.  

The whole lower half of his abdomen was covered in blood stained bandages, not bright enough to be fresh but dark enough to suggest the wounds were still open and seeping through.  He swallowed hard against the gag that came up at the sight of it.  He wanted to look away but he just couldn’t.  

With careful hands, Mary pulled the soiled dressings back and inspected their process.  It looked as if his flesh had been blown apart by a small bomb, red and raw and gaping open in some spots while others had been drawn closed with black threaded Frankenstein stitches.  He looked swollen in an unnatural way with deep purple bruising fading out into a sickly yellow around the edges covering half of his body in varying shades.  

“Looking much better,” Marry assessed before busying herself with redressing them with clean bandages.  There wasn’t much pain that came along with it, just discomfort each time she had to apply any type of pressure to the area.  He figured it must not be quite as bad as it looked and he eased back while she finished working.  

“I hate to do this to you, love, but I need to get you turned over to sort out the bandages on your back,” Mary said apologetically.  There were more on his back?

He was still finding it difficult to process the state he was in, even how he found himself where he was, so he had no other choice but to go along with what she instructed.  

“Up on your side should be enough,” she kept talking to him gently, directing him where to place his arm while she helped him shift onto his side.  

He took back everything he had thought about the pain when the shift in position, the movement in general, had him screaming out at the all consuming intensity of it.  It was burning hot pokers being shoved through his tender flesh, jagged knives ripping him apart in harsh pulls.  

“I’m sorry, love, I’ll be as quick as I can,” she was still talking but he couldn’t hear her over the rush and pulse of his own heartbeat in his ears and the blinding piercing agony.  It was stabbing, a dozen bayonets plunging into him repeatedly and he felt woozy with it.  

Without warning he vomited over the side of the bed, the watery bile of an empty stomach burning up his throat and into the back of his sinuses.  He sputtered and gasped for breath, his mind slipping back into the hazy confusion despite having not fully emerged from it before.  It felt pillowy and calming, peacefully blank, and it wasn’t hard to just give into the feeling.  He felt himself go limp and welcomed the darkness.  

-

The next time he came to didn’t feel quite so violent.  He awoke as he would have on any normal day back at home, yawning widely while he blinked his eyes open.  This time he immediately recognised the white of the ceiling and could place it as the scene of a hospital.  He had been cleaned up with a fresh blanket laying over his body and only one pillow beneath his head.  He didn’t attempt to move and instead turned just his head to take in his surroundings.  There were several beds to his left and to his right, all taken up by other men in various states.  One had their head bandaged while another had a casted leg lifted from beneath his blanket, but they all looked in rough shape.  

It seemed to be night though the room was artificially lit.  It was dim in the section of the room he was in, the lamp near his bed switched off, but he could not find a clock on the walls to confirm the time.  He tried to search out a window but with the blackout, they would be covered and unable to give him any more information about the time of night.     

He cautiously slid his hand onto his belly beneath the blanket, feeling the edges of his bandages just to confirm that it all hadn’t been a stress induced dream, what he had remembered of it anyway.  They were still there indicating the wounds were real and he left it at that.  The pain was still fresh in his mind, still lingering there in his core in phantom pulses like a warning.  His pain right then seemed to be dulled, likely from medication they had dripping into an IV attached to his arm, and he was thankful.

There was a strange tingling itch on his thigh but when he tried to shift his leg to scratch at it, nothing happened.  He lifted his head to look down and again told his leg to move.  It remained still beneath the blankets like a lead weight, lifeless.  He tried with his left leg with the same result, clenching his fists and pressing his lips into a straight line as he willed his limbs to move but still.  Nothing.  

It had to be a side effect from the drugs or perhaps he was still half asleep.  Or maybe his legs weren’t even there.  He had lost his legs, he’d seen it happen.  Panic began to spread through him but when he again looked down he could see the outline of them clearly.  At least they were still there.  He tried to wiggle his toes and again saw no movement under the small tents the blankets made over his feet.  So he was paralysed then.  Kept his legs but not the ability to use them.  

Served him right, he thought self deprecatingly.  He should have listened to his mother and stayed home.  He should have waited to see if and when his name was drawn and maybe he would have been in better shape.  His efforts were supposed to have helped lead to victory but instead they had been defeated with disgrace.  And now, laying in this hospital bed, he couldn’t find the glory in the war wounds that he would have more proudly wore if they came with success.  Instead he had been wounded as they retreated, a coward’s mark branded permanently on his skin.  

Tears began to leak from the corner of his eyes, running down the sides of his face to pool against his ear as he stared at the ceiling.  The lines of the pipes above him moved out of focus while the water pooled and obstructed his vision.  He let his mind go blank while his tears continued to fall, an exhausted sleep finding him not long after.  

 

**18th June 1940**

 

He had just finished his breakfast, what little he could eat anyway, when several men from the hospital staff and a nurse approached his bed.  He stared up at them and an anxiety began stirring in his stomach and threatened to push his meal back up his throat.  Everything felt ominous and uncertain being so helpless and at their mercy.

“Let’s get you ready for transfer, you’re being sent out to Hatfield House.  We’re an emergency hospital, we don’t have the resources for long term care. Just got the notice another batch of casualties are on their way and we need the beds.”  The way the man spoke was so sterile, so matter of fact it was almost cruel.  He felt he was being kicked out for being an invalid instead of transferred to a different facility; it made him feel like an unwanted burden.  He clutched the few possessions that had made it with him to the hospital in his pockets while they worked to ready the stretcher to take him away.  

It was an agonisingly bumpy train ride and the ambulance up to the manor was even worse.  Alex faded in and out from the pain, a coping mechanism to not remember it, but would always vividly recall being rolled into what he could only imagine usually served as a grand dining hall for the wealthy and important members of high society.  The walls were adorned with intricate woodwork, panelling extending up to the high ceilings which were painted like a cathedral from another time.  Huge painted portraits of regal looking men and women stared down at him with their scowling faces, their clothing nearly clown-like in appearance compared to the modern fashion.  

On either side of the room there had been rows of beds set up, a few of them filled while most of them sat empty, each one looking out of place in their surroundings.  It was a strange sight to see these men being looked after by nurses under large chandeliers, like a hospital built in a museum.    

“I’m Doctor Bishop, I’ll be one of the doctors seeing to you while you’re here at Hatfield House.  You’re a lucky one, Mr. Styles.  They say you’re mending up better than expected.”  

Alex wasn’t sure he agreed with the doctor, his pain level still nearly intolerable with most of his movements and his legs still dead weights laying out before him.  It still felt as if the nurses were tearing him in half each time they forced him to sit up for a meal or as they lifted and bent his useless legs for circulation.  He nodded anyway, exhausted from the journey though he had done nothing else but stay put on his stretcher.  He realised he didn’t even have a concept of how long they had been moving nor the distance they had travelled.  There was even a slight gap in his mind that used to know their point of origin, the location of the emergency hospital they had left.  Somewhere back home in England, of that he was certain, but everything else seemed a bit of a blur.  There seemed to be such a mix of accents around him at any given time that he couldn’t use that as an indication either.

“Where are we?” his voice cracked as he forced out the words, hoarse from lack of regular use, raw from his screams.  

“Hatfield, Mr. Styles.  We’ll try to keep you clear of the action while you’re on the mend.  A strong lad like you should be back on his feet in no time.”  That still wasn’t enough information to clear anything up.  

The doctor noted a few things on his chart which he then hung on the white painted metal arch at the foot of his bed.  He wasn’t sure where Hatfield was, it wasn’t a place that he was familiar with.  Maybe once he was more lucid he would ask for a map, ask more details about his new stationed medical base.  There hadn’t been any word on his discharge from The Royal Army so he could only assume he was still considered in service and therefore here until he was transferred to his next assignment.  He was already sure he didn’t want to go back.  

Later that evening, once tea had been served and he forced down what he could of the noodles and broth that had been brought to him, he requested some stationery to write a letter.  It had been a while since he had sent a letter home and he wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had been wounded.  His mother must have been worried sick with no news after the BFE had retreated, after so many had been picked off the beach.  The German army could have been crossing the channel already for all he knew.  Maybe he hadn’t been discharged because there was no British army anymore.  He would have to ask for today’s paper just to be sure they hadn’t fallen to German control.  

 

_Mum & Dad, _

_I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write sooner but I’m afraid I’m not even sure of the date today.  It felt quite warm outside today so I assume it is still in the summer months as last I remember it was nearly June.  I will have to ask a nurse to date the note for me when she takes it off to post._

_I’m unsure what I am able to write to you.  If I write too much, I fear my letter will never reach you.  I am sure you have heard of our blunder at Dunkirk.  In some ways I am glad I arrived as I did so I was not subject to the jeering on the streets as we cowered home defeated.  I arrived at an emergency hospital though I am not sure which nor quite how I got there.  My past days have been sewn together in such a way that I’m not sure I can trust my own memory._

_I do remember swimming for my life to board a ship to get home.  I can only assume that I was injured at that point.  I was told that several bullets went right through my body and that is information I can trust, though it feels like many more than that pierced me with the pain I feel.  I was transferred to another hospital today, a large manor that appears to have been commandeered by the government and converted into a care facility.  I will tell you more about it once I am able to look around.  The room I am in now is a grand hall, one I think you would have liked to see.  The new doctor tells me I am healing well.  Please don’t worry too much as I am telling you this.  As far as I can tell I have kept all my limbs and will only be left with some scars when this is all over.  It feels like I am recovering from a massive abdominal surgery, honestly, which I suppose is a fairly accurate comparison.  Surely people survive from that every day.  I am lucky I was not wounded out on the battlefield and left on the side of the road for the Red Cross to find.  I saw that too many times over to not realise I am lucky to be back on home soil.  I am hoping they will give me some leave time to come home before sending me back out though I’m not sure of the state of things in the world right now.  Have we lost the war?_

_I have had a cup of tea and a few biscuits and I must say that from that, if we have lost the war, England still feels like home so far.  I have not had a cuppa made to this perfection since I left home._

_I’m not sure how far away I am from Manchester.  If it is not too far, perhaps they would allow me visitors if you have a day to make the journey.  I have not met anyone yet but have seen a few civilians being treated here so I would assume that would be acceptable._

_You may have already been informed I was injured but surely not in any detail.  I hope that if you received a notice that this will bring you peace.  Please pass the news along to sis.  I will include the new address where you can reach me._

_All the love,  
Alex._

 

**1st July 1940**

 

_Mum & Dad, _

_I’m afraid I write this letter with a heavy heart.  I witnessed many gruesome things on the front lines in France and Belgium, on the beach at Dunkirk, but I did not expect death to affect me in such a way while I am living in such comfortable and safe accommodations._

_About a week after my arrival here I was moved into a room on the main floor of the manor that may have been a study during its functioning time.  They have set it up as a room for two and after a few days I shared the space with a man who insisted everyone call him “Jolly”.  He didn’t always match his nickname, at times he was quite mean to the staff here, but there were others when he could tell a good joke and have the room in higher spirits._

_Yesterday morning, early, I was awakened by a small commotion in our room.  I never sleep very well these days and though they were speaking in hushed tones, I was still roused.  It appeared that overnight, Jolly had passed on right beside me while I wasn’t even aware.  They tell me he began to bleed internally while he slept and passed peacefully before anyone was alerted to his declining condition.  It has me spooked.  Jolly was here with a bullet wound to his side, a similar place to one of mine, though his happened more recently than the ones I received.  I wasn’t able to find any rest last night wondering if each time I closed my eyes, it would be the last.  I know it is not helpful to think this way but I find that I can’t stop it.  There is no rhyme or reason to why I was one of the few from my squad to survive.  I may have been the only one.  After leaving Logan on the beach, I never saw the faces of any of the others among the masses.  I know these are not the types of things parents wish to hear from their children but I feel alone and frightened here sometimes.  At night I jump at every sound and during the day I flinch at loud noises.  A nurse dropped an empty bedpan in the hallway the other day and I found myself on the floor beneath my bed before I had even realised what had happened.  I am still feeling the aches and pains from that incident.  I haven’t yet been able to operate my legs and had to be hauled back up onto the bed by the doctor.  They call my reactions “Shell Shock” and have said they will have me talk with a psychiatrist if I feel I am not coping well.  I am not the only one here with similar reactions and I hope it will pass in time.  I’m sure it will be nothing to worry about once I have been home for a while._

_I was disappointed to see how far this place is from home when I asked to see an atlas.  Not a continent away but still far enough that I understand it isn’t an easy trip to make in these times.  I hope to not spend too much time here, if I can help it anyway._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**29th July 1940**

 

_Mum & Dad, _

_I’m glad my last letter found you well.  My condition here remains much the same, I’m afraid.  No better but no worse.  The doctor tells me it is a good sign I still have feeling in my legs, at least.  It means that some things are still working even if they won’t do what I want them to do when I try.  They don’t have many answers for me about my condition but say that in time I may be able to overcome the weakness in them.  They come in to do some strange stretches that leave me sore and I hope that it will help but I have already been here a long time without much change.  The pain is a bit more manageable so that has helped._

_I have been assigned a new roommate since I last wrote.  He’s an RAF pilot with some nasty burns over his arm and shoulder and his head shaved on the side where they’ve given him stitches.  I had to look away when they were changing his dressing when he first arrived.  In my condition I don’t have an easy option to leave the room when they tend to him.  He is very quiet so far during the waking hours and is very lethargic.  He doesn’t move around much but I imagine that is due to the pain and that is something that I understand well.  He doesn’t seem to remember who he is or why he is here and has spent a majority of his time staring out one of the large windows at the gardens.  It is the oddest thing.  He is still able to remember normal daily routines and tasks but does so without a sense of self, hollow in a way.  The last few nights he has erupted in the most agonizing screams.  It has startled me awake each time and the nurses have rushed in to sedate him.  I should be upset having my sleep interrupted yet I haven’t been so far.  I feel a kinship to him for I too have some horrible nightmares that haunt me enough to keep me from finding rest many nights.  At least when he screams I know that he is still alive which is a strange way to look at it.  I fear I may not be able to handle more death around me so I will take the outbursts.  It is hard enough just hearing about the lives being lost, knowing what is happening beyond the walls of The House (which is what everyone here calls the manor)._

_I always try not to read about what is happening in the war now that I know we still have a fighting chance but always find myself giving in and asking for the paper by the time evening rolls around.  If I am sent back when I am well enough, I figure I should know where we are at with this conflict but it is still hard to read about.  Please continue to keep me updated about what has been happening at home, though.  I would rather learn of those things from you._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**30th July 1940**

 

Alex stretched his arm out towards the small table positioned next to his bed, reaching further until his fingertips just barely touch the edge of the novel he had started to read to pass the time.  Just a little bit closer, he almost had a hold on it, and then with a loud smack the book fell to the floor after teetering for a long moment on the edge beyond his reach.  He cursed under his breath and stared daggers over the side of the bed at the offending book that was just too far for him to retrieve on his own.  If only he could get his legs to cooperate with him, to move when he commanded them to, but instead they still rested like useless logs beneath his blankets, anchors keeping him irritatingly in place.  He wasn’t the best at bending at the middle yet either, every twist of his body aggravating every piece of flesh the bullets had torn through, his muscles still weak and damaged.  

With a sigh he rested back against his pillows once again, staring at the ceiling in a storm of his own frustration.  He had been so independent once, taking for granted the simple things he had never thought twice about a few short weeks before.  It felt like being imprisoned most times, confined to his bed and only fetched for his meals.    

A movement caused him to glance to his side and was surprised to find his new roommate holding his book out to him with a timid smile.  

“Thank you,” he took the book with a relieved breath, glad to have something to occupy his long hours instead of being left with just his own thoughts, “It’s Louis, right?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Louis nodded, looking down at his shuffling feet, twisting his hands nervously where they were held in front of him.  

“You really don’t remember your name?” Alex asked curiously after a moment but without a hint of judgement.  There had been too many awkward moments between them in the past few days, too long to go without at least being introduced.  They were sharing the same space after all; the least he could do was take the opportunity to start a conversation.  He was glad when his roommate took the bait.  

“I… I guess I feel some sense that it’s right?” he sat on the edge of his own bed a few feet away, finally looking back up to him with sad eyes that seemed so lost.  “I think I’m just missing all the details that go along with it.  Almost like I woke up in someone else’s life?  I just… can’t remember what my own was like either.”

“Do you remember what happened?”  Louis looked down at his left arm that was wrapped round in white gauze bandage from mid-forearm up to disappear under the loose hospital garment they had given him.  It continued beneath the fabric and reappeared up to the base of his neck.  He held the injured limb protectively against his body, all of his movements centred around keeping that part of his body still and protected.  

“No.  I remember my clothes being cut off in hospital, what was left of them anyway.  I remember almost everything since then.”  He gave a small shrug and then winced at the motion, moving his good hand up to gingerly touch the bandage on his shoulder.  “Reckon I found myself some fire, though.” He attempted a small laugh but it fell flat, no humour behind his words as he tried to make light of his injuries.  

“Maybe that’s for the best.  You probably don’t want to remember that bit at least.”

Louis smiled weakly at that with a small nod, a silence stretching between them that he was unsure how to fill.  There wasn’t much comfort he could offer when his body was marred up just as much, when he would also wear his own scars as a reminder long after the war was over.  

“Is it odd that I feel like I know what I would do and what I would say but also that it’s someone else’s reactions at the same time?” Louis asked with a slight hesitancy after a moment.  “I’m not sure if that’s who I am and should accept them or… or ignore all of it.”  

Alex thought about it for a few moments, the complex workings of the brain were not his expertise, he couldn’t even claim them to be.  With his own mind in the state it was in, he figured he wasn’t in the position to give any advice, but he still felt he should try and wanted to offer at least something.

“I think…” he started in his slow drawl, choosing his words carefully, “I think that you should act how you feel you should, how you want to.  If that was who you were before then that’s great but if it’s not… maybe that’s just who you are meant to be now.”

Louis accepted his answer with a small but sure nod, looking down at his bare feet planted on the floor.  

“I think if you spend your time worrying about who you are supposed to be, you’ll lose who you could be now.  And with all the bombs dropping around us, your now might be cut shorter than any time you would take to worry about any of it.  You’ve barely a scratch, hardly anything at all!  You might as well take advantage of your vacation.”  That pulled a hint of a smile from Louis before he looked up with mock offense.  

“Sod off!  This is bloody painful!”

“That’s just a flesh wound!  Got too close to the stove warming your boots, did ya?  Hardly a battle wound. Didn’t even take a bullet.” he shook his head in mock disgrace but could barely hold back his smirk before he was full on laughing at Louis’ dropped jaw.  It felt nice to break through the heavy air that had been hanging in the room since Louis had arrived, it felt good even.  His stomach ached with the contractions of his laughter but he could live with it for a bit of happiness.

“I may not remember but I’m a proper hero being a pilot and all.  Probably saved you lot over Dunkirk and everything.”  Louis reached over for his cigarette tin with his good arm, offering one over to Alex before sticking one between his own lips.  Alex accepted it easily, the habit now routine for him.  

“Didn’t do a very good job then,” Alex mumbled around the fag, leaning in to light it on the match Louis had struck.  He gestured down his body as he exhaled, “Case and point.”

“Yeh?  Sorry mate, I didn’t know.  Must not have been me then if you came out looking like that.” He snapped the lid on the tin closed and the clank of it echoed through the nearly empty room as he tossed it back onto the bedside table.  

“How is it that you remember all that but not even who you are?”

“Dunno, really.  I know there’s a war on, I know the date, I know what’s been happening… just not much else.”  

“Selective amnesia, then?”

“Disassociative, they say.  Whatever that means.  Doc said my brain seems to be fine, thinks I must have blocked out what happened from the shock of it or something.”

“Will it come back?”

Louis shrugged and stared across the room with the vacant eyes he usually wore like a trance, struggling in the recesses of his mind to find what was missing. He shrugged again and looked back to Alex, taking another long drag.  

“I guess we’ll see.”

 

**13th August 1940**

 

“FORTY-ONE SCRAMBLE!!  SCATTER!!”

The sudden outburst should have shocked Alex but he was already used to the disruption that woke him in the middle of the night so frequently now.

“BANDITS ON MY TAIL!  PULL UP!!”

Alex struggled to push himself up, wincing through the pain that ripped through the places that were still tender, raw and open.  He reached his hand over to take hold of Louis’ forearm, grounding him through the terror that gripped him at night.  Less than a week had passed after Louis’ arrival before they had rearranged the room, pushing their beds together for times just like these.  Alex wasn’t able get himself across the room to coax Louis back to reality.  They found he could comfort each other after one nightmare filled afternoon nap, they could pull each other out of their terrors.  

It was too much to watch them rush in to sedate him.  Louis was never quite right the next day after that happened and it never seemed to help.  It hadn’t been much of a conversation at all before Louis had spent the afternoon slowly pushing their beds together with one arm and the use of his hip.  It had been mutually beneficial to the both of them to be closer and Alex liked feeling useful when he wasn’t with much else in his condition.  

Louis’ skin was burning hot yet cold and clammy at the same time, sweat drenching his body and plastering his hair against his face while he writhed against the mattress in distress.

“PLUG AWAY!”

“You’re on the ground.  It’s Alex.  Alex wasn’t with you in the air,” he coached with a steady but gentle tone of voice, hoping the episode would pass with these words like it had the last few times.  It wasn’t always a guarantee but it was the easiest method to try first.  

Louis continued to mutter in his sleep, twitching and flinching but no longer screaming out like before which was a small relief.  Alex kept a close visual, his thumb gently stroking the inside of his arm as Louis worked his way through it.  A nurse appeared at the door and he waved her off, assuring her it was under control and it seemed to be a trend that they trusted him.  

The nurses at The House were trained in medical procedures.  Tending to wounds, dressings, IVs, these were the things they were comfortable with.  They were the straightforward practices of medicine that could be taught and learned with a level of standard practice that didn’t vary much from patient to patient.  Some had a nurturing bedside manner which made them feel like fellow humans while others were lacking in that department and could easily turn their noses up and walk away from the suffering that extended beyond the physical wound.  Because of that, it seemed they were more impatient with the mental burdens that all of them seemed to carry after they arrived.  If someone went into an episode, their first reaction was to sedate them, not to calm them.  He understood their method of treating the symptoms but he was finding that he didn’t quite agree with them.  Most nights Louis could be calmed out of a night terror with a grounding touch, a physical assurance that he was only reliving it in his mind.  

Alex himself found he was the same way.  He had always been a tactile person, a mummy’s boy who welcomed hugs and affections whenever they were offered.  Louis’ fingers stroking his hair had soothed him down from a metaphorical ledge several times already, even in the short time they had known each other.  He couldn’t help but think that maybe all of the soldiers suffering from shell shock here were in need of the same thing, the need to have humanity brought back to them starting from scratch, from the basics learned as a child.  They wouldn’t get that here, not from the staff anyway.  Alex and Louis would just have to rely on each other and for them, it seemed to work.

He slid his fingers down Louis’ arm, gently linking their fingers together and giving them a squeeze.  Louis squeezed back and held on tight, even through the veil of sleep that separated him from reality.  He kept their hands together, thumb gently caressing his skin in small circles, letting him know he was still there.  At some point he must have drifted off and when he woke in the morning, their hands were still linked.  For reasons he couldn’t quite describe, that made him smile.  

 

**19th August 1940**

 

Alex startled when the book he had been reading was suddenly snatched from his grip and snapped closed in front of his face.  

“Come on, I need to get out of this room!”  Louis ripped the covers off Alex’s body without hesitation, the sheet billowing down to the floor like a forgotten parachute off the foot of the bed.  

Alex stared at him like he had gone mad, propping himself up on his elbows to watch him flutter about the room, grabbing up the slippers his mum had sent to keep his feet warm and finally bringing his wheelchair to the side of the bed.  

“Come on come on come on!” Louis urged.  He pushed the slippers onto his bare feet, grabbing hold of his ankles and turning his legs to hang off the edge of the mattress at his knees.  

“Where are we even going?” Alex asked in confusion, unable to do anything other than push himself up to sit, shuffling his bum to perch on the edge with his feet planted like a dead weight on the floor.  

“I don’t know but I have to get out of this house!”  He rolled the chair closer and locked the brakes in place, coming around to slide his good arm under Alex’s shoulders and braced to help lift him up.  “Okay I’ll lift and then turn,” he instructed before doing so without confirmation.  

It was awkward and did not quite work the way Louis had most likely envisioned.  Alex landed with a heavy thump on the side of his thigh against the seat of the chair with Louis tumbling down into his lap.  They both laughed while they also groaned with the various pains they’d caused each other in the process, but in the end they were no worse off than they had been before.  They untangled from each other and Alex adjusted his position in the chair to sit upright, lifting his feet onto the rests one by one with his hands to keep them off the soon to be moving ground.  

“See? Easy.” Louis tried to go for breezy but Alex could tell that his burns were smarting from the collision with the tense way he held his body for the next few minutes.  

“And why do I have to go with you?  I’m sure it would be much easier for you to just walk out of the house yourself and go do whatever it is you want to do.”  

“Nonsense!  I wasn’t going to leave you to bake in that oven of a room!”  The wheelchair swerved and nearly collided with the wall several times as Louis attempted to steer and push one handed down the hallway but it wasn’t working out well.  Alex couldn’t help but laugh when Louis swore under his breath and corrected their direction several times along the way.  

They eventually made it to the large glass doors that led into the back garden and emerged into the bright sun of the early afternoon with only a few more hiccups.  Alex had to admit that the amount of contact he’d had with the outdoors had been minimal at best since he had arrived and it felt good to have the heat across his skin that was so different from the stale and stuffy temperature inside.  He closed his eyes and turned his face up towards the sky, smiling at the exposure.  

“Isn’t it glorious?” Louis sighed happily from behind Alex, the chair moving beneath him again over the path and then down the ramp that had been temporarily built over a section of the stone stairs.  After nearly free falling down the incline, Louis finally gave in to use both hands which was a bit of a relief.    

It wasn’t an easy push to guide his chair over the grass but he had lost a lot of weight being bedridden and figured it was easier than it could have been.  Louis didn’t give up, though, pushing him in between the squares of bushes and flowers out to the next paved path that looped around the section further out.  Alex was at first baffled by how well maintained the gardens were without the staff of the The House on the property until he saw some of the less seriously injured soldiers pruning some of the bushes into shapes across the courtyard and pulling out weeds.  There were many things some of them had taken on to pass the time from general upkeep to helping out in the kitchen.  Alex couldn’t say he was opposed to finding something himself to occupy his time with but figured it would have to wait until he could get around on his own.  At least to a certain degree.  Just the task of helping him around would create an additional job to cancel out anything he may be able to do.  Although Louis seemed to have no problem yanking him out of bed, making it his mission to push him around like a baby in a pram.  He doubted it would be enjoyable if it was an obligation.  

Louis seemed to be recovering an energy that was truly infectious a little more each day.  He was blooming like the flowers they passed by and it was rubbing off on Alex at least a little.  Even with his memory still a blank slate, Louis seemed to have taken his advice to be the person he felt like being at any given time and when the mood was high and it suited him.  His smile was bright and full of life and his presence demanded attention.  Alex could tell he had been a leader at least socially if not in his position with the RAF.  Alex already found himself following his lead more often than not, drawn in by his aura.  It was usually hard to say no.  

They moved along the paths at a leisurely pace, both just enjoying the freedom outside the walls of The House that they had yet to take full advantage of.  Beyond the medical restriction of some, everyone there had run of the grounds.  Though they were still technically in service, the atmosphere was relaxed and time was hardly a pressing issue beyond the hours of set mealtimes.  It was easy to slip into the illusion that they resided in a holiday home in the country, provided you could overlook the bandages and limps.  

They filled their walk with casual conversation when they chose to, light hearted comments about the flowers they passed by or an interesting shape a fluffy cloud had taken in the sky.

Louis was mid-sentence when the sudden sound of engines broke the calm of their afternoon, the drone of noise starting from nowhere and rapidly growing closer.  Louis immediately grew silent and appeared to hold his breath, their attention drawn upwards as a formation of three planes zoomed past them low overhead.  Alex wasn’t well versed in the planes of the RAF but could tell that they were some of their own by the markings painted on their underbellies, he would recognize those roundels anywhere.  

“Hurricanes,” Louis said simply with his voice tight while the formation kept their line and moved off into the distance.  Without warning Louis rounded them back in the direction from which they had come, pushing Alex and his chair back towards the house without another word at a pace that moved them along the grounds much more swiftly.  The mood had shifted so drastically in such a brief moment that it had Alex gripping the arms of the chair anxiously at his sides.  It was the first time that he had actively noticed the difference between the Louis that had been lost and the one that he was starting to know.  It was startling how quickly the flip had been switched between the two.  

“Is that what you flew?” Alex braved to ask once they had made their way through the back garden doors and were safely travelling along the marble floors.

“No,” was all he responded with a sharp edge of finality.  They pushed their way back to their room and for the rest of the night, Louis didn’t speak another word.  

 

**8th September 1940**

 

_Mum & Dad, _

_Came down to breakfast this morning to a sombre scene.  As I’m sure you well know, bombers were over London last night, targets that were not military.  I wish I could say that I was surprised by this news but sadly that would be a lie.  The war has been moving closer for months and their attempts at crippling our defences haven’t been working the way they wished they would.  We hear new bits of information with new soldiers and pilots that are brought in or other officials who stop over.  Sometimes they are very liberal with their knowledge and information after a few drinks with an audience to listen, sometimes with things we do not wish to know._

_Louis has been restless ever since we heard the news this morning, pacing the room and wringing his hands.  He says he feels like he should be going after them but can’t explain why he’s so worked up.  We think his squadron is one that responds frequently to incoming attacks so he’s still wired to jump into action even though he doesn’t quite remember what it is that he did or what he should be doing.  From his papers, it looks like he must have been a fighter pilot which would explain his behaviour.  He says it feels like he should have been there and it is a source of heavy guilt for him.  As much as his reaction is troubling, it seems it may be bringing back his memory, at least some part of it.  I am getting to know him well and he has been a great help to me._

_On days when the weather is cooperating, we spend time in the gardens around The House.  They stretch out on every side so there is much to explore.  Neither of us are very good at identifying the plants and flowers but have made quite a game of naming them ourselves.  Many of them are closing up now, getting closer to autumn, but it is still nice to get out.  Some of the men can get a bit rowdy and have some fairly aggressive sports matches with the ones who are able.  They make up their own rules which none of them quite remember but still argue about.  It can be quite amusing._

_Louis and I tend to stick together more often than not.  I was very fortunate to have him brought in as my roommate.  He doesn’t mind helping me into my chair and actually seems to enjoy assisting me in the things I am unable to do for myself.  The nurses here appreciate it as well since they have been given so many patients on such a limited staff.  Some have made the journey into London today which leaves them stretched further.  There have been rumours that even a hospital was hit.  They will be more helpful there with the emergencies than here coddling us.  It is hard to think about all the children that have been innocently entangled in this war and I can only hope that not many were injured last night._

_Louis is getting agitated again so I will write again when I can._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

**13th September 1940**

 

It was hard for Alex to come by some decent sleep.  If he was exhausted from his day, he would quickly drift off only to be woken by one of his recurring nightmares soon after with no solid rest.  But really, were they even considered nightmares if he had lived through them?  If they were reflections of actual events?  Once they hit, he would lie awake for hours, sometimes until the sun began to creep up over the horizon.  He would occasionally be able to catch a nap at that point until breakfast but he didn’t dare sleep through that.  Meal times were set in a rigid schedule, one of the only things around the house that still operated like they did in the service, in training anyway.  

It was a brilliant full moon on one sleepless night and the white light of it shone through the high windows where the curtains were never drawn.  Louis became highly agitated if they were, becoming claustrophobic and sending him into one of the worst panics Alex had ever seen him in if there wasn’t the illusion of a quick escape.  The heavy velvet drapes had been tied to the sides with large decorative ropes ever since.  They hadn’t spoken about it but he imagined that as a pilot going down, being trapped in a cramped cockpit would be a real fear of imminent death.  He had thought the same himself when watching crews scramble out of a tank that had been hit.  He had seen men burn to death inside an inferno, trapped in a tomb of hot metal, no way to escape.  

Alex didn’t mind the unobstructed windows and it did open the room up quite a bit.  It gave them the small illusion that they weren’t holed up in a medical facility with the natural light always streaming in, less stark and sterile.  

He stared up at the ceiling, counting the small carved out squares in the decorative woodwork as he often did when sleep just wouldn’t come.  The manor version of counting sheep, he joked to himself when he found the reality too much to bear.  There was rustling in the bed beside him and, if it was a lucky night, Louis would also be awake to keep him company until they were both able to drift off.  The comforts of another person that he didn’t have to explain himself to had been a welcome pacifier once Louis had arrived, one he hadn’t realised he needed but that they both leaned against heavily.

A shadow fell across their faces, the sharp line of the windows edge of light starting at their chests, continuing downward to the foot of their beds.  He couldn’t quite tell if Louis was awake or just simply shuffling around in one of his dreams, his eyes not sharp enough to tell.  Squinting, he tried to see, ready to ward off one of Louis’ episodes if he was able to see the signs soon enough, if that was why he was restless.

Instead, another shift and a bit of a whimper and he nearly started the process to sit himself up until a movement caught his eye and he froze.  There in the middle of the bed illuminated by the moon was a point in the sheets that was sticking up from the rest of his body.  And it was moving.  He watched it for just a second longer until he couldn’t come up with any other justifications to explain it away.  Louis was touching himself.  

He could see the slow up and down motion of his fist and could hear the small noises that he was trying to stifle.  Curiosity rose in him and stopped him from announcing himself, instead watching the various strokes and paces he used to pleasure himself.  He found that he liked watching, licking his lips at the sight that made him want to see more.  

It all was tinged with a hint of bitterness though, of jealousy and anger that he wasn’t able to do the same to himself.  Even now as he felt the same sparks in his brain that would normally cue up a reaction, his dick lay limp and useless between his legs without the slightest interest.  Back at home he had been a regular with his “private time”, a healthy urge to pleasure himself at night once the house was dark and quiet.  Part of him wanted to scream out, express the feeling that being pent up in such a way brought up in him.  To feel the urge, the want, the _need_ to get his hand around himself to let out that building pressure and not being able to was an entirely different beast from not having the desire to do it in the first place.  He had tried many times in the weeks before to get a response from his useless parts but to date nothing had happened.  On the verge of tears he had abandoned his efforts each time, coming to terms with the idea that his sex life had ended before it had even begun, that the wrath of war had stripped that function away from him completely.  

But despite all of that, he still wanted to watch.  

Of course there had been times when he’d heard the other soldiers at night, shamelessly wanking without any attempt to hide it.  He had to admit that back in training, it had always made him hard and he listened while they got themselves off, pulling at his own to finish at the thought of the other men around him.  It was nothing but the testosterone that permeated the barracks that drove him to those thoughts, he always told himself after.  It was bound to be a chain reaction with so many virile young men in such a small space.  It fit the crude act, not gentlemanly to think of a lady that way in that setting.  Plus he had never seen a naked woman in person before.  It was only natural to think about parts that he had on himself, of the other boys doing to themselves the same thing that he knew how to do with his own.

He wondered what Louis’ cock looked like.  In the service, nudity was a regular event.  Bathing, changing, dressing wounds, messing about; it was all done in commons spaces.  But he couldn’t recall ever seeing another man’s erection.  He wondered if it would look like his used to, curling up towards his belly in an elegant arc that he often admired when he took his time.  He wondered if he preferred the same strokes, if he swiped his thumb over his wet slit with each motion, the way that always used to have his own thighs quivering.  

He felt the sensation of a blurt of precum ooze from the tip of his dick and for a moment he nearly wept with joy that he was back in business.  Instead when his hand slid down over his white flannel bottoms, he found himself still completely flaccid yet damp on the tip in a cruel twist of fresh humiliation.  He let out a small sob as his eyes filled with tears of despair, unwilling to mourn the loss of things he used to take for granted.  

There was shuffling beside him and some mumbled curses and all Alex wanted to do was curl up on himself but it was too uncomfortable to do anything but lay flat on his back so that’s what he did while the tears leaked down to catch on the shells of his ears.  

“You alright?” Louis asked from his side, now sitting up with his hands over his lap to hide what Alex had already seen.  

“It’s not fair!” he wailed, pressing against his eyes angrily until his vision was dark with speckles.  

“What’s not fair?” Louis asked while attempting to coax his hands away from his face.  

“That I can’t do what you were doing!”  He knew he sounded like an unreasonable child but maybe he deserved to act that way for once.  

“What I was doing…?  What was I… Oh!” Louis let out a small chuckle, covering his mouth to try to stop it.  “I mean, I can leave for a while if you want some privacy.”  

His light and humorous take on the situation just made his tears flow harder and he slid his fingers into his hair to grab it in fistfuls.

“I _can’t_ ,” he stressed, words tripping on a hiccup of a sob that made his abdomen ache.  

“What do you mean you can’t-- oh.  Wait, really?” his voice sounded both shocked and horrified at what Alex was implying and it pushed another sob from his lungs.  

“I can’t walk, I can’t wank, I can’t--” his voice cracked with another sob, pressing a hand to his stomach where the healing muscles there burned with the contractions.  It did little to help as they continued to wrack his body, helpless to the volcano of emotion forcing itself out.    

Louis crawled over into his space and pulled him onto his lap where he continued to sob into the warmth of Louis’ stomach, any trace of what he had been doing before now gone.  They didn’t coddle each other, that wasn’t what this was.  They waited out each other’s outbursts, both knowing optimistic words weren’t going to fix them.  They had both been through things that had changed vital parts of them both physically and mentally.  Louis couldn’t remember what had happened to him but it was all still burned into his soul in a way that he would never truly forget.  His subconscious had retained every horrific detail and there had been so many triggers that brought it all violently to the surface.  Alex may have remembered how he had been injured, but nothing about his condition was as straightforward as it appeared.  Understanding that about each other had connected them in the way they both needed.  

“You’ll just have to wait it out,” Louis said softly once his sobs had died down to mere hiccups that left an awful throbbing throughout his body. “Maybe when you’re healed up everything will start working again.”  

It wasn’t an unrealistic statement but still one that made his recovery stretch that much further out into the future.  It had him contemplating which he would rather have: working legs or working parts.  The selfish part of him preferred the latter.  

There was a hollow feeling that settled deep, one that left him lonely and abandoned in the parts of his life he had yet to live.  It had not been a priority to him yet in his twenty years but to have lost something so vital to having a family before even having that chance was a new realization for his condition.  He pushed his face further into Louis’ stomach as he sniffed, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to get away from the pulsing behind his eyes and through his head.  

“I hate this war,” Alex murmured against Louis’ shirt mostly to himself.

“Everyone hates the war.  And the ones who don’t?  Those are the ones we’re fighting against.”  

Louis stayed with him for the rest of the night.  They held each other like there was no one left in the world and for once they both slept dreamlessly.  

 

**16th October 1940**

 

It was a rainy morning after breakfast and the pair, were sitting in the first floor lounge listening to some music on the wireless with cups of tea.  The large windows let in a dull light that wasn’t bright enough for them to not make use of a few decorative lamps that were positioned between the lounge chairs.  Alex had shuffled himself into one when they arrived, growing tired of the uncomfortable wheelchair or the confinement of his bed that often made him grow restless.  The lack of conversation between them was comfortable, both of them content with each other’s company and the soft music that filled in the gaps.  

One of the nurses peeked in and then entered, an armful of letters cradled with one arm.  

“There you are!  A couple for you today Styles,” she smiled cheerfully in contrast to the drab weather outside.  He took the two offered letters into his lap and began to open the first right away.  

“And one for you Mr. Tomlinson,” her expression morphed into one with a hint of pity, her voice matching as she handed it over and then moved on to the next name in the stack.   Louis took it politely but tucked it between his thigh and the arm of the chair, not even taking a moment to glance at the curling script on the front.  He would no doubt hold it until they were back in their room where he could tuck it into the pile with the rest of them, all unopened.  Alex had watched this same scene play out over and over again since he’d arrived and the bundle tied together with a string just kept growing larger.  

“You should probably read them,” Alex told him softly, letting his own letter rest unread on his thigh.

“Don’t see the point if I don’t remember them.”  His tone was stubborn but his eyes gave him away, a longing there that he never addressed.  

“You should at least write them a note to let them know you’re alive, ease your family’s angst if they don’t know.”  He wasn’t sure why he was pressing it but it felt like the right thing to do.  There were enough families with fallen sons or husbands or fathers, enough that were missing in action.  It didn’t feel right to leave anyone hanging in that horrible waiting game of the unknown.  

Louis stared off across the room, avoiding eye contact but Alex knew his tells.  The press of his lips into a line, the tightening of his jaw.  He had hit the right buttons.  

“It would hurt too much to read and not remember,” he finally responded, voice so soft it was barely heard.  Alex took that in for a moment before finally giving one nod.  

“Would you at least let me write to them?  Or let me read through them to see what they know?  They might already know what has happened.”  

“Wouldn’t feel right for you to know them before I do,” Louis muttered, looking down at his hands with visible shame and guilt clouding his whole posture.  

“I could read them aloud to you.  It would be just the same as reading the papers to you.  Maybe it would help you remember something.”  

It was a long shot, Alex knew.  From the meticulous way Louis carefully stacked the latest letter onto the top of the others before tying up the bundle once again he knew it was a touchy subject.   But he had also seen Louis staring at them when he thought no one was paying attention, like he hadn’t yet built up the courage to crack into them himself.  

Louis’ silence wasn’t an idle one.  His fingers traced the seam of the chair and his head tilted with consideration.  Alex didn’t let the opportunity pass.  

“Why don’t you go and grab them.  It will at least keep us occupied while it’s raining and you can tell me to stop at any time.”

It took a little more coaxing before Louis had finally but reluctantly agreed to retrieve the letters from their room.  The bundle then sat between their teacups for a while longer, Louis starting the most mundane conversations to delay them further.  

“Let’s start with the earliest and work our way up to now,” Alex suggested when the string had finally been released and the letters were sitting there freely in front of them.  “Hand me the first one from the bottom.”

Louis took a deep breath and slowly blew it out, the top letter fluttering with the force of him preparing himself.  The letter he pulled out from the bottom of the stack looked well worn, more so than the others, with addresses crossed out and replaced with new ones and done over several times.  It had definitely had a journey to make it here.  

Louis’ hand trembled slightly when he handed it over, bottom lip held tightly between his teeth anxiously.  Alex gave him one last glance, one last chance to change his mind, before sliding his finger beneath the flap to open the first letter.  He pulled it out and unfolded the one page note with beautiful looping script that somehow felt like a warm hug.

“ _Louis Darling_ ,” he began to read, glancing up to make sure it was okay to continue before starting again.  

 

_Louis darling,_

_I forgot to tell you in my last letter that Mildred from next door is expecting again.  Charles was home on leave for his mother’s funeral a month or two ago and wouldn’t you know it!  She has already been struggling to keep the two she’s got in line!  Fiz has been over to watch them more times than I can count!_

_They read your name out in a special prayer on Sunday to keep you safe in the sky._

_Take care of yourself, we all miss you._

_Love your mum (and everyone else)_

 

Alex glanced up for a reaction and found Louis staring across the room again, fingers gripping each arm of the chair tensely.  

“Want me to read another?”  Louis didn’t say yes but he also didn’t say no, not stopping him when he reached forward to slide another envelope from the bottom of the pile.  He made sure to insert the first letter back into its own envelope, keeping it safe in a second pile next to the first.  

 

_Louis darling,_

_We have been hearing news of bombings along the coast and I hope you are keeping yourself safe.  You have always wanted to be a pilot since you were old enough to tell me so but I do wish it wasn’t in a time of war or that you were stationed up North where there isn’t much action.  Lottie told me there was a newsreel on the RAF at the cinema this weekend.  She said she may have seen you but I’m not so certain.  I see you on the street all the time but have learned that I can’t always trust my eyes.  It is never you when I look again.  She has sworn it up and down that it was you.  I hope it was and that the footage was recent._

_Please look after yourself and don’t take risks you aren’t required to.  We want you to come home in one piece._

_Love your mum (and the others)_

 

_Louis darling,_

_Your nan was over for tea and was terribly disappointed to hear we hadn’t received a letter from you to read.  Dan was also surprised we have not heard from you and his weariness about it has made me nervous.  Please write when you have a moment, even just a note.  The twins have missed the jokes you write to them._

_Love,  
Your worried mum_

 

_Louis darling,_

_I have gone as far as contacting the academy to see if they know where you are.  The RAF has been very unhelpful and refuse to give me your location.  I worry that you may be assigned to a secret mission which seems dangerous.  Or that you are missing in action and they will not release the information.  Mrs. Rundell’s husband has been MIA since 23rd June but only just got the notice of this just this week.  They aren’t very timely with these things._

_We miss you very much and love you more.  
Mum_

 

And so the letters continued.  One after another with the same edge of uncertainty that made Alex anxious for the family on the other side of the correspondence.  

There was even a postcard tucked into the mix which simply said “Louis William Tomlinson.  Please write home.”  That pulled a small snort of a laugh out of Louis which made Alex smile a bit and hoped it was opening up the possibility that he would write home to his family who was clearly wondering why they were being met with radio silence.  

They eventually made it to the final letter, the one that had just arrived that day.  For some reason, he hesitated to open it.  Reading this letter would no longer be the story of a family he didn’t know, a history of events from the past that now were just titbits of information.  This letter was in real time.  This letter would reveal the thoughts and feelings that this family was experiencing in the present, most probably even in that very moment.  Somehow that knowledge made them seem more real, more concrete.  He couldn’t leave it open ended, though.  They would see it through and then Alex would do his best to convince Louis to write.  

 

_My Darling Louis,_

_It has been months since I have received a letter and even longer since I have heard your voice.  I try not to count the days but the calendar pinned to the sitting room wall taunts me each time I walk past.  We’ve never gone more than a week without a letter since you left for the academy and the more time that passes, the more I fear the worst.  My heart tells me you’re still breathing and we haven’t yet received any bad news though I have been trying to find word.  The RAF does not entertain worried family members.  I suppose they have bigger matters to attend to but you, my first born, have been the centre of my world for so long that it is hard to accept that._

_It has been harder now with another of my babies out of my sight.  Charlotte has gone down to London to train as a field nurse though I tried my hardest to talk her out of it.  I’ve taught her so much of what she knows from helping me yet I contradict that and tell her not to follow my footsteps into the medical field.  She’s too young to be so close to battle but then so were you.  Her determination makes me think her real intention is to track you down, find you in a hospital just out of our sight and unable to contact us.  That would be better than you being taken away from us for good.  At least we’d still have you.  I do wish Charlotte would come back home though it has only been a few weeks so far.  London is too far away.  The distance seems further with both of you there._

_The last letter we received from you said you and the boys were itching to get up into the air and frustrated that you were being held back as much as you were.  I pray that your eagerness to jump into battle hasn’t been your downfall.  I have always been proud of you and your accomplishments at the academy and then with your position with the RAF and know they trained you well.  You may just be too busy attempting to become a bird to write your mother.  I hope that is the case.  We have heard about the bombings and all the success the RAF has had against the attacks.  You are a hero here at home.  You pilots are becoming the poster boys of the war.  Everyone is always asking about you.  I wish I had news to tell them.  I always say you are busy defending our skies._

_The twins are just over two now…  Old enough to ask in their own way when they will get to meet their big brother.  Your pictures are still up around the house and they point and ask about you nearly every night.  You’ve been a hero in the house for a long while.  Phoebe and Daisy have taken to telling them stories about you and you will be happy to hear that they are in a more positive light than they might have painted you in when you played your tricks on them.  Dan makes paper airplanes with them and makes up stories about flying.  He has been working to make the planes you fly which is why we don’t see him as often as we’d like.  They have increased production to replace what is damaged every day which demands more of his time.  He loves you like you are his own son and he is also worried.  He says it makes it easier to give up his time when he knows he might be building a plane you may be flying.  But it also makes it harder for us to know how many planes they are needing to replace.  Planes can be replaced but pilots can not and that is the part I try my best not to dwell on._

_Please send us word when you are able.  We are on the edge of our seats waiting to hear any news at this point, good or bad._

_We all love you and miss you very much,  
Mum and the rest of us.  _

 

Alex stared down at the last words he had read and took a few long breaths.  He couldn’t imagine the anxiety this family was living with while waiting to learn the fate of their son.  Everything led to Louis being lost and it pained him to know that instead Louis had been by his own side the entire time.  He looked up and was surprised to see silent tears sliding down Louis’ cheeks while he stared unfocused across the room.  

“I think you need to write,” he said softly, setting the last letter down with the others.

Louis nodded after a few minutes, scrubbing his cheeks aggressively enough to leave a red rash in their wake.  

“I want to remember them,” his voice angry but only with himself.  “I want to but they just aren’t there.  None of it is there.”

“They will be.  Give it time and they will be.  Maybe we can ask them to send some photos,” Alex suggested, “I can write for you if you’d like, if you’re not ready.  We could write it together.”

Louis reluctantly agreed and returned to the study after retrieving some supplies.  They set out to write the letter that would be a lifeline to Louis’ suffering family.

 

**21st October 1940**

 

Alex leaned back on the palms of his hands, pulling his hips further onto the bed while Louis lifted and rotated his legs into place along the mattress.  He winced at the aches and sharp pains he now lived with, squeezing his eyes shut as he rested back against the raised bed to get through it with clenched teeth.  Louis’ hands were warm through his thin trousers, gripping his calf in a gentle massage to distract him away from the discomfort.  

“Nurse said massaging the muscles might help with blood flow,” Louis commented, fingers gentle while they worked over his nearly useless legs.  It would be so easy to give up, mundane tasks now leaving him exhausted when he at one time could deadlift hundreds of pounds.  He rubbed at his eyes, frustrated with himself and the situation.  He should have progressed further by now.  He should have been healed.  

The movement of Louis’ hands was something to focus on though, always gentle when he needed to be without making Alex feel weak.  It was one of the brief times he felt himself relax.  They moved up his calf to his thigh, soothing him like a baby being rocked in a cradle.  He wanted to believe that the manipulations were helping but they felt good either way.

He had just let his eyes fall closed again when Louis’ hands paused suddenly, frozen to their spot high above his knee and stiffened in a way that didn’t feel natural.  He popped his eyes back open in confusion, Louis standing over him stock still with eyes downward in a focused line towards his crotch.  He followed his gaze and oh.

Standing proudly between his hips was his dick, erect and tenting his thin white pyjamas.

There wasn’t a way to hide it or joke it away but honestly, he was in such a state of excited shock that he didn’t want to, couldn’t even entertain the idea.  He wasn’t broken and that fact nearly brought tears prickling to his eyes.  In his worst moments he had already started to mourn the loss of pleasure, the reality that those bullets had taken away more than just his ability to walk and function on his own.  

But there it was, his good friend finally returned from war, staring back at him and demanding to be acknowledged.  

He looked up to meet Louis’ eyes and saw the same look of astonishment there on his face.  They both knew how monumental this was, not at all embarrassing.  He was so lost in his joyous relief that he barely noticed that Louis’ hands had released their grip and started to migrate until a fist gently gripped him through the cloth.  

He gasped at the contact.  It had been nearly a year since he had last touched himself, half of that time when he hadn’t even had the urge or wanted to.  Any touch that wasn’t in a clinical or medical sense was like taking in the first deep breath of spring and it warmed his whole body with excitement.  Louis looked back up as he experimentally moved his hand but Alex didn’t stop him, didn’t _want_ to stop him.  It felt so good and he wasn’t willing to miss the opportunity to finally release what had been building up inside him.

They had always been blunt with each other, telling it like it was and never coddling, never hiding or sugar coating.  It was that straightforward relationship that kept Louis from hesitating as he carefully pulled the band of Alex’s pants over his erection and down his hips, freeing him to the open air.  There was no shame between them, Louis had seen him at his worst, had helped him bathe, helped him dress.  They had seen each other’s bodies dozens of times, even Louis’ in the same state when the mood struck.  He didn’t bother to hide it anymore after being caught.  

There were still raised pink scars across his pelvis, tender with places that still scabbed over, even so long after being patched back together, as a testament to how severe his injuries had been.  With anyone else he would have felt the need to conceal them but Louis already knew where he had been, where they’d happened.  Louis had the same map of battle scars tattooed on his own body; it was what had brought them together, something that Alex cherished in an unexpected way.  

He watched Louis’ hand wrap around him again, the sensations somehow muted from what he remembered, a sensory side effect caused by the neuropathy that kept his legs from cooperating, but still the best thing he had ever felt.  A bead of precum was already bubbling from his slit and Louis’ thumb easily slidthrough it and made him groan deeply.  He felt that he could have come just from watching the way Louis handled him in such a fluid and mesmerizing way.  He had watched Louis move his hand over his own erection more than once but he never seemed to handle himself with such a sexual grace.  

The weight of unspent come in his balls was something he became very aware of as they tightened to his body and without warning his dick was pulsing almost painfully in Louis’ hand while his own fingers white knuckled the sheets at his side.  His toes curled tight enough to cramp on their own before his whole body seemed to hum euphorically.   

“Holy shit,” he panted out as he watched himself shoot over his own stomach and ooze down over Louis’ fingers.  

“Guess we know that’s working,” Louis smirked like it was nothing, raising his coated hand to have a taste before reaching for a rag.  It could have been something that happened every day with the natural ease Louis had while he cleaned him up and tucked him back into his trousers.

Alex was still too stunned to say anything, watching the motion with blown out eyes that were glossy with tears.  He would retract his thoughts later, but right then, it felt like the best day of his life.  

 

**25th October 1940**

 

They didn’t talk about it.  They moved around each other and continued on just as they had before.  There was no hesitancy or awkward pauses, just Alex and Louis as they had been all along.  Perhaps an extra glimmer when they caught each other’s eye or a small smirk that slipped its way in here or there.  Even stronger than that, being together now felt as natural as breathing.  Alex helped Louis slip his shirt on with hands that were a little more gentle than before and Louis lingered in Alex’s arms in the half embrace it took them to transfer him from the bed to his wheelchair and back.  It caused a gentle flush to reach his skin but he felt it in the best of ways.  

“I have a surprise for you,” Louis said one afternoon after Alex had finished a particularly intense physical therapy session that left him drained and irritable.  

“Lou,” he sighed, rubbing at his eyes.  “I don’t think… I just can’t right now.”

Some days were harder than others.  His progress seemed minimal and his frustrations were high.  There wasn’t enough energy in his body to throw on a smile with Louis when his only desire was to destroy everything in sight.  He wanted the satisfying shatter of glass as he heaved something through it, he wanted to storm through and turn over chairs and tables in a rage, he wanted to rip the canvas of the paintings along the walls that always stared at him to pieces.

Louis just didn’t understand.  Louis still had full use of his body, to come and go as he pleased, not relying on someone for some of the easiest tasks.  He couldn’t even make it to the toilet on his own if he was already in bed for the night.

“Please, let’s take a walk.  The fresh air will be good for you!” Louis’ voice sounded too chipper to his hardened ears and the simmering pool of his frustration reached its boiling point, the bubbles rising to the surface in a violent burst.  

“I can’t bloody walk, Louis!!” he raised his voice with sturdy words, aiming their force directly at the other.  

Louis visibly deflated in front of him, smile slowly dropping from his face and staring in shock at Alex’s uncharacteristic behaviour.  

“I can’t walk and I’ll be a ruddy invalid in this god forsaken chair for the rest of my life.  So no, _Louis_ , I can’t take a walk with you.”  

“Are you quite finished?” Louis had crossed his arms over his chest, levelling him with an unimpressed look.  It reminded him of one his mother might have directed his way when she knew he hadn’t washed behind his ears.  It served to neutralise the tantrum he had been working towards, all his fight draining right out of him.

“You’re lucky you’ve still got both your legs so there’s no use sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, that’s what my mother always says,” Louis’ boots echoed on the marble floor in determined steps around to the back of his chair but Alex had frozen with what had just come out of his mouth.  

He turned his head to look up at Louis, whose hands were already gripping the handles to push him towards the door.  Alex reached out and gripped each wheel at his sides, halting the chair in place.  

“What did you just say?” he asked to make sure he had heard correctly.  

“You can’t keep feeling sorry for yourself?” Louis tilted his head in question, “Because it’s really not helping---”

“No, the other part,” Alex cut him off, placing a hand over his.

“What me mum always says?” he repeated and there was a long moment before the realisation began to cross his face.  Any surprise and any tension had been immediately erased.

Louis had remembered.  

 

**28th October 1940**

 

Louis had already pulled Alex up to sit on the bed, an easier process now that some function, however weak, was coming back to his legs.  He was able to hold himself with his feet on the floor to sit on the edge of the bed while Louis wheeled the chair over to him, something that seemed monumental though such a small accomplishment.  

“Get in, then,” Louis gestured, staying behind the chair instead of coming around to help him transfer over as he usually did.  Alex looked down at the chair and then back up at Louis with a confused expression.  

“How do you expect me to do that?” he asked after it was clear Louis was not coming around to help him.  

“I think you can do it,” Louis shrugged, gripping the handles to hold the chair steady.  

Alex again looked down at the chair and then back up as if his words made no sense.  In a way they didn’t.  He didn’t have the strength or the ability to stand, turn and sit himself down.  Maybe Louis was losing more of his present memories as he gained back his old, not remembering how useless he still was.

Finally, Louis let out a small sigh and came around to stand in front of him with his hands on his hips.  

“I’m not going to baby you forever.  Come on, stand up and I’ll make sure you don’t fall.  If you can’t do it, I’ll hold you up.  Ready?”

Alex reluctantly agreed after a moment, lifting his arm so Louis could slide his good one around his back to lift him up as they normally did.  This time, though, Louis didn’t support his full weight and after a few struggling attempts and a strong grip on the metal arch at the foot of his bed to steady himself, he had finally made it to his feet.

“See?  Knew you could!”  Louis palm slid down his back and then around his waist at a pace too slow to be platonic.  It felt nice to have Louis’ hands on him because he wanted them there instead of purely out of necessity.  Louis made his way around to stand facing Alex with his hands holding onto his hips to make sure he would be able to steady him in case he started to waver.    

“Look at you all standing on your own,” Louis cooed and Alex found himself blushing at his praise.  

He swayed slightly and on instinct reached out to steady himself with a hand on Louis’ bad shoulder.  He immediately felt guilty when Louis winced but Louis recovered quickly.  

“Sorry, sorry,” Alex mumbled, nearly falling backwards with the speed he removed his hand from the injured area.  Louis kept him steady by his hips though, like he said he would, and brushed it off.  

“It’s fine, not as bad as it used to be.”  But Alex still felt bad for causing him any discomfort at all.  “Come on, let’s get you set.  We’re going on an adventure.”

It was awkward and uncoordinated as they tried to get him into his wheelchair, this time with him doing most of the work.  He turned too far and the chair began to roll away and his feet tangled up against each other but in the end it turned out fine and they laughed when they were finally ready to go.  

“Why do I feel like you’re always kidnapping me?” Alex asked with a small laugh while they headed down the corridor towards the back garden, picking up speed along the smooth polished floor.  

“Stop complaining!  I’m sure I’m not keeping you from any important plans.  You were trying, and failing I might add, to make an origami bird this morning because you were so bored.”

Alex had to laugh at that, it was true.  Without Louis around, he would most likely be confined in his bed day in and day out.  The nurses didn’t have time to push him around whenever he felt like moving about.  At least he felt like he had a little freedom with Louis, even if that meant being dragged around with all of his spontaneous ideas.  

They make it down the ramp on the stairs with practiced ease now that it was routine but instead of heading towards the back garden as usual, they moved down the path that rounded the side of the building to a section Alex had not been to yet.    

“Where are you taking me?” Alex gripped the armrests while they bumped along an uneven section of the path.  

“So impatient!” Louis complained but he could hear the smile in his voice which made his own lips curl up.  He enjoyed the banter they had developed between them, even the way they bickered with each other.  

They finally came to a stop along a tall square line of hedges.  He looked down the row and then up to Louis, wondering why a row of greenery was supposed to qualify as an adventure.  Louis rolled his eyes and pushed him around to a gap in the manicured line.  

“It’s a hedge maze!” Louis wasted no time continuing into the structure, turning around the first corner.  

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Alex asked, not wanting them to be stranded in the centre once Louis was lost and tired of pushing him over the uneven ground.

“They wouldn’t make a hedge maze if you weren’t supposed to use it.”  

They laughed as they attempted to navigate the maze, arguing with each other over every wrong turn that led them to a dead end which happened often.  

“We’ve already been here before!” Alex insisted through his laugh, gesturing to the distinctly abnormal branch growing out of the otherwise cleanly manicured wall.  He was certain they had already passed it at least twice.  

“No we haven’t!  We’re getting closer to the end!” Louis shook his head but it was clear he was questioning it as well.  Alex watched while he walked up to the branch, yanking on it out of spite.  To his surprise, the section snapped off and left him stumbling backwards right into Alex’s lap.  He laughed and wrapped his arms around his middle to steady him, holding him steady.  

“I guess we should have been leaving a breadcrumb trail behind us to be sure,” he pressed his smirk against Louis shoulder to hide it, squeezing him closer.  

“You’re supposed to be the navigator,” Louis turned and slid an arm around his neck so he was now sitting sideways in his lap.  

“I did tell you we’d already been down this way but what did you tell me?  To trust my pilot?”

“Oh hush,” Louis smiled fondly and leaned forward to cut off his words.  Alex froze when their lips connected, shocked by the unexpected action.  His eyes stayed open wide, unblinking as their breathing mixed together.  Louis’ fingers slid up the back of his neck to the short hairs on his head, the feeling spreading goosebumps over his skin and breaking the tension that had took him by surprise.  He immediately melted into the touch, experimentally moving his lips in a clumsy unpractised way.  Apart from a few play yard pecks on the cheek, he’d never had a first kiss nor any others to learn.

Louis took the reins of the kiss, bringing him closer and guiding their lips together in a slow dance.  Alex had always imagined his first kiss to be soft and though it was, there was an added roughness from days old stubble that he found himself relishing in.  He surged in for more and his hands found their way up to cup his cheeks, to stroke the soft hints of beard growing there.  They were details he’d never placed into his fantasies but now knew he could never remove.  It was scary yet thrilling to find another man filling those spaces and he already knew he would be chasing this feeling long after it was over.  

They separate from each other when they need a breath, staying close enough to feel each other’s breathing against their cheeks, both grinning with blushing cheeks.  Louis leaned in to give him several more small pecks, each one accompanied by a light happy laugh.

“Is this why you brought me out here?” Alex asked, his hands migrating down from his cheeks.  

“No, but it seems to have worked out for me.”  His grin was radiant and Alex couldn’t help but mirror it, both giddy after the heady kiss they had shared.  He laughed and surged in to claim his lips again, the rush new and addicting for him, not ready for it to be over.  

They continued until they heard a rustling on the other side of the hedge, shrieking as they jumped apart.  

“We’ve been caught!” Louis giggled and grabbed the handles of the chair.  They laughed while they tried to find their way out of the maze, eventually finding the end that should have been painfully obvious to them from the beginning.   

 

**12th November 1940**

 

“What does your tattoo mean?” Alex inquired softly through the dim light.  It was the dead of night, though he wasn’t sure of the hour, a night when they had both been too wired to sleep, too many thoughts they needed to be distracted from buzzing to life.  

“Dunno really,” Louis shrugged, turning onto his side and propping his head up on his hand to look down on him.  They had both managed to fit themselves on one of the narrow mattresses, the length of the bodies pressed together in the tight space.  Louis’ bed was still flush to his so there was no fear of falling to the floor even if they didn’t quite fit.

The muscle twitched beneath Alex’s finger as he lightly traced the pattern over Louis’ bare chest, permanent ink etched into his skin with a story that was no longer there.  The symbol, banner and words were worn like a badge over his heart, still significant somehow.

“Those words seem a bit menacing to be forgotten,” he commented, sliding his fingers over the words ‘Seek and Destroy’ inked in scrawling black script.  A banner framed them with a symbol similar to a crest positioned just above with the word ‘Squadron’ arced above it.  On each side of the symbol the number 41 was printed, all in black with bits of red and very prominent on his pale skin.  

“Maybe it was a drunken night out with the lads or maybe so they could identify my body when I went down, which squad to box me up for.”  

“Don’t say that,” he frowned, “It looks more like a pride tattoo to me.”  And it did.  It was bold and detailed and most certainly not just some sloppy ink and sewing needle blob like he had seen on some of his comrades arms.  “I think you took pride in what you did and you wanted to own it.”

“I think I did, I feel that I did,” Louis answered, letting Alex stroke the slightly raised skin of the pattern over and over.  “I think I remember striving to get in at the academy, even with all the discipline it took to get there.  It was always what I wanted to do but I don’t think I ever thought I’d find myself in the midst of a war, not like this one anyway.”

Alex nodded in agreement because who could have predicted what the war had become.  Certainly he had not.  But he was glad to hear that Louis had at least set out to achieve something for himself before getting caught up in it.  

“I think I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of each sortie, though, once I was doing it.  It’s a bit difficult to describe.  I remember the feeling or emotions of being up there but not the actual details or events.  I know that I was good at it, I know that I enjoyed being good at it, I don’t remember what I actually did.”

Alex nodded, listening to him talk.  He didn’t interrupt when Louis talked about his life before, when he started remembering things.  There was so much he didn’t know about the person he now felt closest to and he clung to every new detail that was revealed.  It was a strange situation for Louis to be just as clueless as he was but it made him feel closer, more connected.  They were figuring him out together and in that way Alex would always be a part of him no matter what.

“I wonder if my squadron know if I’m alive or dead,” Louis wondered softly aloud, “I don’t really know how or where I went down.  They might just think I’m gone and I’d have no way to ever tell them otherwise.  I don’t even remember their faces.”  

“It will come back.  You’ll be able to tell them.”

“When I remember, it might not be just a memory that’s gone.  I may not remember but I’m not naive.  I know every sortie has a fifty-fifty chance of staying alive that comes with it.  I know how many pilots are being lost.  Squadrons in eleven group see the most action over London and the channel and for every good day comes a week of bad ones.”  

“I’m glad your bad one brought you here to me,” Alex said softly, splaying his palm out over the tattoo.

“If it was going to happen either way, I’m glad the one that did brought me to you as well,” Louis leaned forward and planted a kiss on his forehead before settling back down next to him.  

They both fell silent in their thoughts as they often did and after a while, with his hand still resting on his chest, he felt Louis’ breath slowly even out with sleep.  It didn’t come as quickly for Alex but eventually his eyes slipped closed, images of Louis confidently commanding the sky the last pieces on his mind.  

 

**30th November 1940**

 

The rain had kept them indoors for the day even though the chilly air had been keeping them inside more and more frequently.  It still made them restless to not have the option and slipped outside for a breath of fresh air as soon as the rain had cleared.  The sun was setting on the horizon, tonight’s pinks and blues looking like candy floss clouds across the canvass of the sky.  

“Can you sit down?  Your pacing is making me nervous.”  Maybe it was partially due to the fact that he was confined to his wheelchair, dependent on others to get around.  He wasn’t able to walk it off, unable to move around at will, and other’s movements made it more obvious to him sometimes.  

“Grass is still wet,” Louis replied matter of factly but he had never been able to stand still.  

Alex tapped his thighs with his hands in invitation, “Come on, then.”  

It wasn’t the first time Louis had sat on his lap, not even the second.  They were often goofing around in the hallways of The House, Louis catching a ride when one of the nurses pushed the chair down to tea or when all of the lounge chairs in the study were already occupied.  

Louis straddled his thighs, lowering himself carefully onto Alex’s lap so they were both facing the sunset.  

“That okay?” Louis asked, glancing back to make sure he wasn’t in any discomfort.  There were times when his legs felt sensitive, a normal touch feeling like a stack of bricks in weight to his untoned muscles.  Louis always knew to check, always took care of him.  

He nodded with a small smile, hands naturally resting on the hips in front of him as they looked out over the horizon.  It was peaceful and calm despite the storm that had rolled through earlier, so recent that the smell of rain was still in the air.

Louis shifted in his lap and the motion made Alex realise he was half hard from the warmth of another body, the reaction so natural with Louis that he hadn’t even noticed.  It didn’t make him ashamed, though, and he gently squeezed the meat on Louis hips, pulling him back until they were comfortably back to front and Louis’ plush ass was resting right on top of his erection.  Louis rotated his hips right on top of it, surely able to feel it through the soft material of their trousers.  

Alex pressed his forehead against Louis’ back between his shoulder blades and his hands slid around to rest splayed out over his belly.  

“Ya alright?” Louis asked and rested his hands overtop the ones on his belly.  

“Feels good,” Alex mumbled innocently, moaning softly when Louis swiveled his hips against him again, this time with more purpose.  

He moved his hand lower from Louis’ belly, curling his fingers around the line pressing up against his trousers.  It was intimate and unhurried, both just feeling each other like a lazy summer afternoon even though the air was cold around them.  There was a blanket up around Alex’s shoulders that they had brought with them, ready to shield them if the weather made them shiver.    

After a few moments he grew bold, his thumb hesitantly exploring over Louis’ clothing.  He could easily feel the details through the thin cotton, thumb circling over the head while his fingers squeezed.  

“Feels good,” Louis echoed his own words back to him, voice breathy and soft.  There wasn’t anyone around, there probably wouldn’t be at the edge of the garden at this time in the evening, but he still felt the movement of Louis glancing around to be sure.

“Don’t stop,” he mumbled against Louis’ back, encouraging his hips to grind into him while his own hand continued to experiment.  He wasn’t experienced with touching someone else and he felt clumsy when he attempted to slide his hand beneath the material to touch him without any barriers.  He felt warm and silky in his hand and his response to the discovery was moaned gently against his shirt.  

He began to stroke like he would his own within the confined space, breath shaky while Louis’ ground down against him at the same pace.  He pressed another kiss to his back, feeling bold with his hand curled confidently around Louis’ erection.  He was rewarded with a whimper that kept him moving, his own body reacting and growing harder.  His hips shifted up to search for more friction the best he could, his uncoordinated movements not enough for what he was searching for.

Louis felt his struggle and shifted forward.  He reached a hand behind himself to slip into Alex’s trousers to grasp him, the angle awkward but the contact exactly what he had been needing.  He groaned and squeezed his hand around Louis in response, both of them stuck in a graceless dance that felt better than any practiced waltz.  

They came into each other’s hands embarrassingly quickly which left them with messes in their pants and shivers through their bodies as the adrenaline of the moment began to wear off.  Alex pulled the blanket up around them, embracing Louis in its warmth after he had settled in against his chest.  With their cheeks pressed together, they watched the last light of day slip below the horizon, staring after it until cold air of night drove them back inside.  

 

**22nd December 1940**

 

The time when the newspaper fell into their hands was one of the least favourite moments of Alex’s day but also one that was always anxiously anticipated.  A majority of the time they were able to isolate themselves, pretend that the world wasn’t in turmoil outside the bubble that they had created but it was a fantasy that was always broken at least once every day.  A new patient would arrive and remind them of the carnage that other humans were capable of inflicting.  The paper would arrive with details of another bombing or another military movement.  They could hear the planes and bombs first hand and those days were the worst, though they had been fortunate to not experience them often.

They had a strategy, Louis and Alex.  They read the paper from good to bad, leaving the worst information for last until they could no longer avoid it, until they were built up enough to take it.  Births and marriages always came first, down to the front page that always came at the end.  The headlines were a bitter pill to swallow but something they both felt they needed to know.  They could be released from The House at anytime and it was unrealistic to expect to return to the world as they had left it, at least their home that had still been intact.  Their country was being destroyed piece by piece and their ignorance would not magically rebuild it for them once they returned to life.    

They had gone through their routine like every other day, reading aloud the articles to each other in a corner of the study that wasn’t occupied.  Alex was curled up in one of the big chairs while Louis sat in his wheelchair, absently rolling himself back and forth like rocking chair since he always needed to be moving.  It was warm with the fire nearby and so far many of the articles and adverts had been themed around Christmas, just like the sparse decorations The House had tacked up where they could.  

It was Louis’ turn when they finally made it to the front page, the headlines there the ones they tried not to internalise.  It was never a good day when one of them latched onto the bad news.  Alex waited while he glanced over the headers of the articles first, pulling at a loose string on his trousers absently.  He paused when the wheelchair came to a stop, the sudden lack of movement drawing his attention when he was used to Louis always buzzing with energy around him.  He looked up and watched his face frozen in an expression he wasn’t able to immediately read, his eyes twitching back and forth swiftly over the text.   His face grew pale then and Alex wondered anxiously what grim news awaited him once he was able to read it aloud.  

“Doncaster, I know these streets,” Louis raised a hand to pull at his hair in distress and Alex could do nothing but stare while he awaited more information.  

“What if it was them?? What if they’re not okay??” his voice had grown higher in pitch, words swift and frantic.  

“Who?” Alex fumbled to shift forward enough to take hold of his hand and guide it away from his hair, keeping it gently in his grip.  

“The girls!  My mum!” The words were barely there as he gasped for breath, chest heaving with the effort.  “I can see them now!  I _know_ them now!”

His eyes were wide and wild, searching Alex’s face desperately for him to give the answers he needed even if he knew he couldn’t.  The paper fell to the floor when Alex took both hands, rubbing his thumbs over his knuckles.  

“I’m sure they’re okay, yeah?” he tried but knew he couldn’t hide the hint of doubt there because there was no way of truly knowing, “You would have heard by now I’m sure.”  

“I know them all now!  I _remember_ them!  They aren’t just names anymore, not just from the photos!  But all I can see are their bloody bodies!  I’ve only just found them again and now they’ve been taken away from me already!”  A large sob wracked his body as he crumbled in on himself like all of his bones had suddenly melted, his wheezing gasps amplified in the quiet room.  Alex looked over him towards the door and prayed they wouldn’t rush in to restrain his outburst before he was able to calm him down.  

“Listen,” he said firmly, squeezing his hands to grab his attention, “Listen to me.  They aren’t dead.  You can’t see their bloody bodies because there’s nothing to see.  Tell me what you remember.”  

He kept watch for the nurses out of the corner of his eye, trying to get Louis to focus on him.  

“Lottie,” Louis tried to gasp out as another sob overtook him.  

“Here, come sit with me.”  He scooted over to one side of the chair as far as he could, prompting him to come with a gentle tug of his hands.  Eventually Louis did, crawling into the chair to sit with his legs across Alex’s lap and his cheek pressed to his chest.  

Alex didn’t care who could see them and gently stroked the dark hair that was starting to get a bit shaggy.  It had grown out and been cut once since the uneven shave for his stitches, but it had been awhile since it had received any attention.  He didn’t mind, he actually found he preferred it longer.  He liked to run his fingers through it when Louis let him but he seemed to enjoy it like a little kitten.  

“Yes, Lottie…” he prompted again after the sobs had started to subside with his ministrations, trying to distract him from the thoughts that tore him apart.  

“Is the oldest, after me,” Louis sniffed, his breath still hitched.  And from there they continued, talking through every new detail of his family that had flooded back into his memory.  It wasn’t all there, not yet, but it was more than Alex could have expected from him.  

They stayed like that, together in one chair, until they were called for tea, and though eyes full of pity continued to land on them for the remainder of the evening, everyone seemed to know enough not to ask.  

 

**24th December 1940**

 

Alex waited until the rest of the house was dark, the only light flickering from the Christmas candles Louis’ mum had sent in a care package to give them some holiday spirit that had arrived with a letter assuring they were all safe.  They were homemade and a bit misshapen but the love poured into the room as they burned as cheerfully as any fancy store bought ones would.  A family of that size couldn’t afford a trip down to visit, not when it wasn’t a necessary one and the bombs dropping over the countryside had left railway lines and stations periodically out of service.  A leave request had been denied for both of them by the medical department as well.  Louis had been fighting an infection and Alex was not yet able to travel on his own without an escort.  It was just the two of them left to celebrate together the best they could.  

Instead they had decided to make a Christmas for themselves with the few things their families had sent to brighten things up.  Louis had paper ornaments decorated by his younger siblings fastened to the metal arch of the head of his bed, the messy glitter catching the flickering light in a shiny dance.  They had also sent some paper garlands that they had hung as best they could. Alex’s mum had sent two Christmas poppers that shimmered in bright colours.  He knew she had saved them from the year before, hopeful he would be granted Christmas leave while still in training.  They sat on the small table in their room beneath the sprig of evergreen that Louis had ripped from one of the hedges in the garden.  Alex had laughed when he had returned proudly with the branch but Louis had assured him that it was a perfectly acceptable and necessary multipurpose festive decoration.  

Alex’s mum had somehow acquired an orange and they sat and shared the fruit, savouring each juicy wedge, giggling like children who had just stolen the last cookie before bed.  But Alex had saved the best surprise for last.  He scooted himself across the bed to grab the small box that had luckily gone unnoticed over the course of the day.  Sitting up was a bit of a chore, manually pulling his legs to cross so they could sit facing each other on their respective beds with just the seam of the two mattresses between them.  

“Happy birthday, Lou,” Alex said softly, placing the small box between them with a giddy smile.  It wasn’t elaborate, just one he had made from layers of newspaper thick enough to make it sturdy, repurposed just like everything during the war.    

“It's my birthday?  How did you know it's my birthday?”

Alex chuckled softly, “I saw it on your chart one day.  24th December, day before Christmas.  I remembered because I thought how unfortunate it is for all your presents to come only once a year.  Did you really not know?”

“I hadn’t thought about when my birthday might be.”  Louis’ voice was gentle and honest, both of them speaking to not shatter the bubble they had created.  “I suppose it makes sense now that mum was going on about my special day.  I assumed she meant Christmas.”

“Go on, open it!  It will be like I’ve given you your first birthday present!” Alex grinned, dimples deep and eyes shimmering with an excitement that rarely surfaced.  

Louis pulled the box closer and slowly removed the top.  He peered in hesitantly and stared for a moment before looking up with an expression of pure adoration and shock.  

“Where did you get this???” he demanded, picking up the box as if he needed to inspect it closer to make sure his eyes hadn’t deceived him.  

“I have my ways,” Alex smirked.  He would never tell how he was able to pull it off but the look on Louis’ face had already been worth it.  Placed neatly inside was a small round cake complete with sugar icing and one small candle stuck into the middle.  It was a rarity in times of rationing to have access to enough sugar to even make a cake of such a small size let alone icing.  It was more precious than even the orange they had shared.  

Louis set the box down beside him and Alex began to reach for the matches to light the candle thinking they would share the cake.  Instead he found himself being knocked backwards onto his mattress with an armful of Louis.  He winced and grunted with the sudden movement but quickly tightened his arms around Louis’ middle to keep their chests together.  

“Thank you so much Lexie,” Louis whispered into his ear and Alex blushed deeply at the new use of his nickname.  It sounded abnormally affectionate and intimate and sugary sweet and he never wanted Louis to call him anything else.  “It’s the best present anyone has ever given me.”

He felt soft damp lips gently press to a spot just below his ear that had his skin prickling with goosebumps like an on button.  It made him shiver and tilt his neck to the feeling, inviting it to continue in the timid way he knew how.  He brought his hands to rest on the flared curve of Louis’ waist, gripping there just hard enough so he wouldn’t move away.  

“More than I could ever ask for,” Louis murmured while his lips continued a slow path down his neck and then across his jawline.  They had never done this before, never been this intimate with what they did sexually.  He had always been able to explain it away as a burst of hormones and primal need but Louis was tattooing a different story across his skin and he welcomed it.  

As their lips finally met, so did their hips, Louis shifting his thighs to straddle him and grind them together where it mattered.  They moaned into each others mouths and Alex used the little strength he had built up in his legs to push up against him.  

It wasn’t rushed but there was thick intent accompanying every action and it didn’t take long before they were both breathing heavily against each other.  Alex still had places where he was tender, wondered if he ever wouldn’t, but even with Louis’ weight threatening to hurt him, he trusted without a doubt that he would be taken care of.  He had the same nature towards Louis who still had angry burns on his body that just wouldn’t heal.  

They were both hard, easily felt against each other through their thin clothing each time Louis rotated his hips down.  

“Please,” Alex whimpered, large hands trying to direct him where to go, trying to mould them together.

“Shhh,” Louis murmured and lifted his hips up, the sudden loss feeling like a rush of cold air against him.  That was the opposite of what he wanted.  “I’ve got you.”

Alex whined for contact, too needy to realise Louis had pulled himself free until he was doing the same to him.  

And then they touched.  

Their erections had never touched before and he gasped more from the image before him than the actual sensation.  

“This okay?” Louis asked, mistaking his reaction for hesitance though it was anything but.  He shook his head almost violently and looked back down at the way they lined up.  They were both so different yet so much the same and he almost came all over himself just taking it in.  He couldn’t understand how something so beautiful was illegal and his dick twitched just to confirm his thoughts.  

“So hard for me,” Louis mumbled shocking Alex again and taking them both into his good hand at the same time.

It only took three strokes before he was coming, shooting over his stomach and chest with a startled shout that Louis muffled with his own mouth in a sloppy kiss.  Louis worked him through it before releasing him from his grip to work at his own, the mattress shaking beneath them with the momentum.  It didn’t take long until Louis’ come was mixing with his own.  It was a beautiful sight, his eyes tightly shut and bottom lip tightly between his teeth to keep himself quiet.  

They both stared at each other while they came down, their breathing recovering to a normal pace.  As if on cue they both began to giggle like children who had just done something naughty and Louis leaned in to give him a playful kiss.

“You’re a mess,” Louis laughed softly, reluctantly pulling away with a lopsided smile stuck on his face.  Alex looked down at himself, seeing the evidence of their pleasure right there on his skin.  

“I think I like it,” he admitted softly, cautiously chancing a peek at Louis’ reaction.  Something had shifted in his eyes that made them seem dark and lustful and before he could decipher what that meant he was being attacked with an urgent kiss that continued until they were both breathless.  

“I think I like it too,” Louis murmured with a gentle kiss to his cheek.  He offered him another smile before pulling himself away to find something to clean them up with.  It was hardly past midnight and it was already the best Christmas Alex had ever had.  

 

**26th December 1940**

 

_My precious son,_

_Our Christmas has once again been tainted this year and I am writing with the most devastating news.  Over the last few days, I’m sorry to report that Manchester was on the receiving end of two heavy bombings though none as far north as our home.  Early on Christmas day your father reported to the factory to aid in putting out fires and salvaging what they could.  While they were inside a section of the building collapsed and it took them several hours to find the men that had been trapped.  Your father is in hospital with injuries that I am not able to explain myself as it is still too hard for me to believe it has happened.  My husband and my only son and I am unable to help either.  I will write with news as soon as I have heard anything._

_Love from home,  
Mum_

 

**29th December 1940**

 

It was a chilly night just after Christmas but that hadn’t stopped everyone from heading outside after tea for a bit of fresh air.  With so many men staying at The House, it had the tendency to get a bit stuffy so the reprieve was always a welcome one.  

Louis had pushed Alex out to the gardens, pulling a wooden folding chair with them so he had a seat.  Alex pulled out his fags, sticking one between his lips before offering the tin to Louis.  He took one and accepted the light with cupped hands gently brushing Alex’s as he held it up before lighting his own.  

“Odd feeling tonight,” Louis commented while they smoked, the only two in this section of the garden though the murmur of other voices wasn’t far away.  

“Strange colour to the sky,” Alex agreed, pulling at his lip with his thumb and forefinger, deep in thought.  Louis continued to slowly push the wheelchair through the garden, walking the same path they did nearly every evening after tea if the weather permitted.  That night proved to be a bit nippy but nothing compared to a usual December night.  

“It’s eerie,” Alex said as he stared off towards the horizon, “It looks as if London is on fire.”

Louis paused his steps and they both stared on, suspended within a heavy silence.  

They had heard the distant hint of the air raid sirens on the wind earlier in afternoon but it was impossible to know exactly where they were coming from though it now seemed quite obvious.  There had been the faint wub-wub-wub of German bombers just close enough to hear before the sound began to grow faint again, passing their targets and turning to make their way back home.  It was a reality that neither one of them wanted to admit but was at the forefront of their minds.  Louis especially, who could identify any aircraft with the smallest detail by some sixth sense that always amazed Alex.  

Though the Hatfield Aerodome and aircraft factory was just down the road, they tended to view The House as a safe haven.  The air raid sirens often sounded in the small town, presumed to be a strategic target in breaking down Britain’s war machine but throughout the grounds, the soldiers paid no mind.  They had already lived through it on an escalated scale and none of them could afford the state of anxiety that came with cowering in shelters and cellars nearly every night.  They all felt they were living on borrowed time anyway.  

“Have you ever been to London?” Alex asked as they looked on, unable to look away from the glowing horizon.  

“I have,” Louis nodded.

“What’s it like?” It felt so strange that he had seen other countries but not yet the finest city in his own.  He had seen more of France than he had of England which seemed a bit backwards really.

“It’s grand,” he replied with a hint of a smile in his voice, “Bought me mum and sisters some fancy things with my first pay there.  Wasn’t too far from the airfield and we’d go in from time to time before it got bad.  Used to get some cakes and coffees for free in our uniforms.  Was always very crowded though.”  

Alex liked when he remembered things now but it seemed to happen more often when he was caught off guard as if his memory was working without him.  

“I’d like to see it one day.  We’re so close it seems just around the corner.  Maybe I could catch a train when I’m discharged before heading home.”

“Maybe we could go there together, that would be a grand adventure to match the city, would certainly top our adventures in this garden.  We could dress up and go to the theatre then stop for brandy and cigars at The Savoy and rub elbows with all the important people in London.  We could pretend to be heirs to a fortune, rich cousins out making a show of our wealth!”

“I don’t much fancy the idea of being your cousin,” Alex wrinkled his nose, thinking of all the things they got up to when they were alone that cousins just wouldn’t do.  

“Young bachelors then.  Straight out of university and waiting to inherit the family business.”  

Alex smiled and let out a small laugh at his elaborate story but very much liked the idea of running around the big city with Louis.  Maybe after the war, they would do just that.  

 

**25th January 1941**

 

Alex was sitting with Louis in the study, a half finished game of chess sitting between them with their mid-morning tea.  It was sunny but the air outside still holding too much of a chill for them to venture out for too long.  Alex was just contemplating his next move when an official looking man walked into the study.  

“Tomlinson.”  His voice was just as commanding as his uniform suggested and Louis scrambled to his feet at attention in response.  The rigid posture with squared shoulders and head held high was such a stark contrast to the relaxed slouch he was used to seeing.  This was Pilot Louis Tomlinson, not his Lou, there in front of him.    

“Yes, sir!” A few of the pawns rattled as they fell over with the movement but Alex didn’t reach out to steady them, too busy staring wide eyed at the interaction.  

“You’re being released on home leave.  Gather your things.  We leave at 1100.”  He gave a nod before turning and leaving the room, a buzz of anxiety left in his wake.  Alex glanced at the clock on the mantle.  That was in less than 20 minutes.  Louis was leaving in 20 minutes.  

“I better… um…” Louis stuttered before he turned and walked out of the room leaving Alex in stunned silence.  

He had just wheeled himself out into the grand entrance hall when Louis appeared around the corner with his bag dressed in the civvies his family had sent him when he was tired of the hospital pyjamas.  

There were too many people around, officers and nurses and doctors all fussing around the soldiers who were being sent home or back into combat.  Too much of an audience to say what he wanted to say, to hug him close and kiss him desperately until the final moments.  But there hadn’t been time to make it back to the privacy of their room, there hadn’t even been enough time for Alex to process what was happening.  

Louis approached him with an emotionless mask over his face.  

“Tomlinson! Let’s go!” barked one of the officers.  Louis snapped his attention down the hallway and gave them a quick nod before turning back.  

“Alex,” Louis said, his voice stiff with formality.  He held out his hand to shake and Alex reached out and took it, the shake lasting a suspended moment.  They met eyes and there was so much passing through the light coloured irises staring back at him, so much unsaid, so much they couldn’t say.  

“See you around,” was the last thing Louis said while all Alex could do was give him a small nod back, his hand staying suspended in the air for a few seconds while he watched Louis give him one last look before turning to walk away.  Alex could do nothing but watch him go, the goodbye unfinished and sudden, a part of him leaving along with him.  

  
  
  


_My Dearest Alex,_

_Would it be too much to say I miss you?  Home has changed so much and I along with it.  It doesn’t feel much like home anymore, not like it used to.  Even Donny isn’t immune to the war and the evidence of the bombings are still visible around town but I don’t get out much to see it.  I try not to see it._

_Since I returned, my role seems to be nanny to the kids in the house while my mum is off delivering babies and the other nursing she does.  Dan is away for the work week, only home on weekends.  I suppose mum thinks it’s good for me to spend time with them, especially the younger twins since I was already off at the academy while they while they were toddlers and haven’t had a chance to know me.  I have never disliked children but they have grown so much since I have been away and I am not the same brother they said goodbye too.  I still don’t feel like myself, or at least who I think I was.  It becomes a bit exhausting at times trying to decipher the two - who I was and who I am now or who I’m supposed to be._

_Ernest has rose coloured glasses on about war as we did as children and often asks for battle stories with innocent excitement, stories that my mum has probably told him of his big brother off flying Spitfires and being a hero.  I haven’t the heart to tell him off, he’s just a child.  It is sometimes all I can do to hold back the shaking until I am alone when new memories are triggered in my mind.  I didn’t realise how much I had taken your comfort for granted when those spells would come over me.  I have taken to wearing long sleeves else their curiosity gets the best of them.  Mum scolds them but again, I just don’t have the heart.  In these times, they are already having to grow up too fast.  They shouldn’t have to know what to do in an air raid or how to put on a gas mask or any other thing the war has brought on.  They shouldn’t have to know why their brother was away for so long and how he got all these scars.  I hope they never know how many lives were taken by my own hand, I don’t even wish to know that._

_As much as we talked about going home I never dreamed I’d find myself wanting to go back.  It was a bit of a holiday for us, really, wasn’t it?  Just you and me?  I don’t feel my smiles are genuine here like they were back with you.  I haven’t had a good laugh in ages.  The nights are lonely too.  Mum set me up with my own room but it feels too quiet.  It stirs my mind back to the airfield, the silence while we waited for the phone to ring.  With as much as I complained about it, I never thought I’d say I long for your snoring beside me._

_I hope you don’t mind that I’ve written and I hope you can find a moment to write back.  I wonder about your progress every day.  You had nearly walked on your own when I left.  I suppose you are running through the meadows by now._

_Yours,  
Louis_

 

_Lou,_

_I cannot express my elation when Nurse Carmen dropped your letter off to me early this morning.  Things have not been the same without you here and I had felt I’d lost a dear friend when you left before receiving it._

_I’ve made use of my crutches in the last few days if only to keep from bothering the nurses.  It has been slow but I no longer feel like I am trying to keep myself upright on two limp noodles as you always used to call them.  I still cannot stand for long on my own but am able to make it down the corridor to tea although at a snail’s pace.  As soon as I am able to meet their lowest requirements for my strength I will be sent home they tell me.  I imagine they will be happy to be rid of me after such a long residency with new patients arriving daily who more urgentlyrequire their attention.  I have become more of a burden without you here to get me around.  It has been expressed to me more than once that you took on most of their duties and they often forget I’m now on my own.  Rather than be offended by this, I have taken it to mean I should be pushing to learn how to fend for myself in this state._

_I’ve met another RAF pilot who was brought here the other day.  He goes by Collins and tells me he was in your squadron when you went down.  He was happy to hear you are alive and well.  His condition is minor and is set to return to his post in several week’s time.  I asked him to tell me about your time together, of what he knew of your time at the airfield.  He may be a key to bringing back some of the gaps you are still missing but I don’t feel it’s appropriate to tell you here in a letter.  That will be your own decision if you want to know.  What I will tell you is that I was surprised to hear of all the bluebirds you left broken hearted back at the base though I would suppose you don’t remember much of that or you would have told me in some of our more intimate conversations.  It seems you were quite liberal with the details when you came back from your “dates”.  He keeps calling you “Tommo” and it makes me chuckle every time.  I imagine it suited you quite well when you were with the lads.  I think it still suits you though I can not picture myself being able to address you as such with a straight face.  Lou always sounded best when I whispered it in your ear.  I woke my new roommate last night with my laughter while I was thinking about you.  I was nearly there when the image popped into my head of calling you Tommo when we reached our end.  It was quite humorous. I thought you may find that amusing._

_You are fortunate that your mum has allowed you to have some time to yourself.  Mine sounds ready to ship me off to work, crutches and all, as soon as I set foot (or perhaps wheel) off the train.  Since father is unable to work, I believe she’s worried about our home though I have saved nearly all I have received from leave pay in this horrible state I’m in.  She will argue that I only need my hands to help the war effort in some factories.  I would like to argue that my health and body have already contributed enough though she will not be happy with that selfish answer.  The battle for Britain is still underway and I, just as everyone else, do not want to fall to the Germans._

_But then maybe they will keep me here until I am walking again and then ship me off again.  I shouldn’t ponder that, it makes me tense._

_I’m very glad you wrote._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

_My Dearest Alex,_

_I can imagine that I had a certain amount of bravado around the ladies.  There is quite a bit of attention that comes with being a fighter pilot with the RAF and mum assures me I would have been, and was, at the centre of it all.  My memory still comes in bits and pieces at the most unexpected times and while reading your letter, I can confirm that what he says is true.  I do remember a few lumpy jumpers I was quite fond of and can clearly picture getting a few of them out of their twilights but that was all a bit of a game, really.  I think we were all a little reckless and rude when we didn’t know in what state we’d be returning the next day.  I had to go down to collect my leave pay and as I looked around on my way, found that I have grown out of my interest in chasing skirts.  Perhaps it is just another part of me that I have left behind.  Or maybe it is just you.  It is you I think about when I’m alone and you I wish I was coming home to._

_My sisters are quite fond of the popular tunes at the moment and often have the wireless switched on when they are home.  There is a song by Glenn Miller that seems to grab my attention each time it plays and it reminds me of how often I think of you and how we spoke of dancing once you were on your feet again.  If you have not heard it, I will leave you with a few lines._

_Just before I go to sleep_  
There’s a rendezvous I keep   
And a dream I always meet   
Helps me forget we’re far apart   
I don’t know exactly when, dear,   
But I’m sure we’ll meet again, dear,   
And my darling, till we do   
You are always in my heart

 _Yours,_  
Lou  
  
  


 

_Lou,_

_Somehow I am not shocked that you weren’t a perfect gentleman.  With the confidence that you had taking my knickers down (if I had been wearing any!), I expected an intimate past though I do hope that if your memory returns fully you’ll be able to tell me I was the first with these parts.  I hope I was.  You already know you were the first for most things for me.  I had always thought that I just wasn’t ready to start thinking about finding a wife but I think it was that I’d rather find a husband.  Maybe it was the same for you._

_It is still lonely here without you and the things we did to pass the time.  I attempted to walk myself through the gardens like we used to but wound up so exhausted with the effort that I found myself stranded on one of the far benches until it was nearly dark.  I kept expecting you to appear with my chair to take me back up to tea and my heart was heavy when I realised that you wouldn’t come.  You left so suddenly that sometimes I forget you’ve gone, just like our game of chess, we have been left unfinished.  I still reach out for you sometimes in the night but even your bed has been pushed back into its proper place, no longer near me.  I know there are others here who have been through similar things but it always felt like you understood me where they do not._

_Since I have not been progressing fast enough, there has been talk of my discharge from service which I have my thoughts all mixed up.  I enlisted to do my part for the country, perhaps I just wanted to be a hero.  Instead I am afraid I have done nothing but disappoint.  We ran to Dunkirk like cowards and then I selfishly was determined to save only myself.  In the end, I have done nothing to be proud of, nothing for my country to be proud of.  My guilt is also building in my relief that I may not have to return.  The Alex you know is not the same Alex that went chasing glory for I have seen what the illusion of glory really is.  It is mud and cold, blood and noise, fear and emptiness - nothing that could be used in Churchill’s propaganda.  The people have been fooled… but with good cause I guess.  If I do not return, it means there are others there in my place, others with more bravery than I hold._

_I am sorry, Lou.  I sometimes feel my demons raging without you here to distract me from them.  But I know you would want to hear about them._

_Miss you,  
Alex_

 

_My Dearest Alex,_

_Bravery can take many forms and I wish you could see that in yourself.  Bravery is overestimating your strength and getting yourself stuck in the gardens you silly silly boy!  WE are brave, my darling Lexie, in a world that would see us thrown in jail over our affections.  When you are home, I plan to visit to make sure you know that in person.  I will kiss you back to your senses until you believe me.  I have met cowards in this war and you, Lexie, are not one of them._

_I, for one, refuse to feel guilty with my own relief that you will not be going back.  It means I will worry less about your safety, even with the blitz.  I selfishly hope they will deem me not of sound mind to return, as disgraceful as that would be.  I would at least have the excuse of my injuries to hide behind.  Maybe then we could find jobs together to support the war efforts in other ways.  Perhaps we could help build the planes, like Dan, instead of flying them._

_My sister, Lottie, has written to tell us she has met a pilot.  She sounds so naively in love and wishes to get married soon.  I want to write her that it will only bring heartbreak.  Each day some of us do not return, I was even one of them who did not.  I remember all too clearly now that the lad I ate breakfast with wouldn’t be there by tea, an event that seemed to be on a constant loop.  Those are the things I wish had not come back, wish would disappear once again.  As a brother I feel torn.  I feel it my duty to warn her of these things, to keep her safe from anything that will cause her pain but also my duty to be happy for her.  My heart is not strong enough to hold her up if she is widowed as soon as she is married.  I do not know which advice is the one to choose.  You would help me with this if you were here, I know that you would.  In an ideal world, you would be her brother too.  At least in-law.   Is that too bold?  I do remember you saying you were looking for a husband.  I’d like to hope I would be considered for the job.  I believe we made a rather handsome couple.  Maybe I would need to see you in more than hospital pyjamas first, you might not clean up well.  I suppose it only matters how you look without any clothes on and I already approve of that!_

_I only jest, I know you would look handsome in anything, even a bridal gown, I’m sure._

_Your little notes arrive almost daily but I am very glad you also write me longer letters.  I rush to be the first to snatch up the post and I’m sure the lot think I have some sweetheart I left behind.  And really, I do, but not in the way that they can know.  Maybe one day._

_Please write again soon._

_Yours,  
Lou_

 

_Lou,_

_Do you remember when there was a reporter who visited The House while you were here?  He has sent us some photographs and in them were several of us.  I swiped them when no one was looking to keep them for myself.  I should have restrained but I could not just abandon the evidence of the time we spent together.  I have enclosed one of the photographs that I think you will like.  It makes me smile._

_All the love,  
Alex_

 

_My Dearest Alex (my little thief!),_

_I cannot believe you would send me stolen property and frame me as an accessory to the crime!  But I do very much like this photo.  I’ve placed it between the pages of the book I keep by my bed and pull it out to look at your face every night.  If I sometimes think of things other than your face, then no one else but us get to know about those bits.  One of my deepest regrets since we’ve been apart has been that we did not speak of these things when we were together.  I want to lay in your arms and tell you how much I love you (because I do) and hear you say it back in your slow lazy voice at night.  I want to be close to you and hear your voice while we discuss this odd attraction that brought us together, why you’d never kissed a girl but had no hesitation hauling me in, why I’d rather spend hours tracing patterns on your tummy than spend the night with a dirty Gertie, something I regretfully found myself jumping at with every opportunity that presented itself in the past.  Maybe I was trying to prove myself to the other lads._

_I think about it all sometimes, I seem to have too much time to think but I can’t stop it.  It all confuses me a little.  When I would touch you, I did so because I wanted to, because you wanted me to, because it felt good.  Now wonder why I find your parts so attractive because I do, I find every inch of you attractive.  For some reason I’m not supposed to think that way but I have never been more sure of anything.  I want to know what you think about it.  I wonder about why it would be a crime if someone found us being intimate.  I want to know why what we have done is worthy of a prison sentence and who decided that it would be.  You might have some of these answers.  Please tell me if you do._

_For now I will accept what I know to be true and take comfort in the fact that we both feel the same.  The details can come later when the world is not such a complicated and depressing place.  Why worry about that now when I can’t even find some candy to indulge in!_

_I indulge in you instead.  And indulge I most certainly do.  My thoughts of you are sweeter than a month’s ration of sugar and feel much better too.  I think my memories of our Christmas together are my favourites to call upon at night and now I can look at your face in that photo as well.  I will always cherish it._

_Miss you,  
Your Lou_

 

_Lou,_

_I will start by giving you my sincerest apologies that so much time has passed since my last letter.  Much has changed and all of it swiftly.  I received your last few letters all at once so I know you have been waiting for my reply._

_I received word that my father had passed several weeks ago.  He was never able to fully recover from the bombing aftermath back around Christmas.  Mum was a mess and with the news I was finally given a pass to go home to attend the funeral.  It had been over a year since I’d seen him last and I’ve been feeling guilty for that.  Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have enlisted and instead waited for my turn to be called up.  I could have spent more time with him though he would have thought that a waste._

_After that I spent some time with my sister.  She is pregnant and her husband was called up several months ago, two facts that my family failed to tell me though I’m not sure why.  I’ve tried to be helpful but sometimes just feel in the way.  I’m still not very good on my feet and not much use when it comes to tasks around the house.  I still stayed with her for some company as long as I was able to.  I would have stayed longer but returned home at the end of my leave expecting to be taken back to The House.  Instead I received notice that I’ve been dismissed from active duty and released from medical leave.  They have deemed me not fit for combat and I am settled with their ruling.  I would not want to go back but I don’t think I could.  I would be a sitting target on foot and not likely to last a day.  I also have a lot of muscle to gain before I am able to haul the things we were required to in France.  I was instructed to report to the local war office in Manchester where I’ve been assigned a job sorting different records.  I don’t mind it and it is quite easy for anyone who knows how to read.  I am thankful for the work._

_My mum is making plans to move in with my sister so I must decide where I will end up.  I’ve included the address where I can be reached and I will let you know of any change.  I received your last several letters in a bundle so I’m not worried about them finding their way to me._

_I think of you often and wonder what you may be doing at this very moment.  We are much closer to each other now, just two short train rides apart, I’ve already asked at the station.  Much closer than a day’s journey like before.  It still feels too far.  It seems frivolous in these times to entertain the idea of travelling to see you but surely splurging just once would be acceptable after all that we have been through.  I just want to be near you, even for a few short hours.  I would travel all day just to be able to hold you in my arms and feel that you are real.  Sometimes in my darkest moments I fear I’ve made you up but then I still remember the way your hands felt on my body and I know that was too good to be a dream.  I went without the privacy of my own bedroom for so long that now that I have the luxury, I have found it difficult to keep my hands off myself.  It usually begins with thoughts of missing you and before long I’m imagining your hands and your lips and your voice against my ear.  I am able to move on my own more freely now and imagine all the different things we could do now that I am not as immobile as I was._

_But it is not just that.  I want to hear your laugh and see your smile.  These photographs I have hardly do it justice.  I want to hear you tell me these stories instead of just reading your words off a page._

_Please write and tell me I am able to visit.  I feel desperate with the need to see you and feel it growing more urgent the longer I know you are within my reach.  I miss you so much that sometimes I struggle to breathe.  Please tell me you feel the same._

_I miss you,  
Alex_

  


_My Dearest Alex,_

_This may be the hardest letter I have ever had to write.  Harder than telling my own mother I couldn’t remember her.  No, it may not be the hardest letter.  It most certainly IS themost difficult string of words I have ever had to put onto paper.  _

_I have received notice that I have been called into service again.  At first I thought it just a mistake and then perhaps just a prank.  But it had arrived from official post along with a travel warrant and a date to report for duty.  I was inconsolable and am not ashamed to admit I wept until I was gagging up everything in my stomach.  I then went down to the local and drank until I don’t quite remember what happened.  I awoke in my bed and thought it had been just another dream, there have been many nights I have dreamed of being ordered back into the action.  Once I realised it had not been a dream, I crumbled again.  I can’t bear the thought of going back but also cannot see another option.  I cannot afford to forfeit my pay nor can I fathom the other consequences failure to appear may bring.  I could not do that to my family after only just getting them back._

_You have grown so important to me.  You, Lexie, were the only person I knew for such a long time, the only person that I could trust.  You crept into my heart when everything else was missing and helped piece it back together from the inside out when I wasn’t able to do so myself.  You helped me remember._

_I often think of our time spent together.  Your stupid dimples invade my thoughts at all hours of the day and wrench my heart open that we are not able to be together.  In a different world, you know we would be.  In that world we, could find a cottage somewhere in the country just big enough for the two of us or perhaps big enough for a few children we could adopt that have been orphaned by the blitz.  I know the children were always a weak point for you.  We could have a big garden in the summertime and enjoy the quiet clean air away from the city just like we did at The House.  We could fall asleep in each other’s arms every night and have lazy lie-ins on weekend mornings just to enjoy each other’s bodies without the threat of someone bursting in.  We could go for long walks, real walks this time, holding hands while we chat about the weather and pick out shapes in the clouds.  We could go dancing if we needed a bit of excitement and come home together without the threat of a knock sounding at our door._

_I could kiss your lips whenever I pleased.  I could touch you and pull those beautiful sounds from you that I love to hear.  You could be my husband in every sense of the word._

 

_We both know that I will not be able to write once I have returned to my post, not in the way we both wish to.  The censors would have me court martialed and dishonourably discharged before the ink had even dried on the page.  It would also lead them to you, my darling, with my words as their only evidence and I will not see you jailed on account of me.  I would never be able to live with myself regardless of what would happen to me._

_My heart is breaking, Lexie, shattering into a million painful pieces over this cruel turn of fate. But I cannot and I will not ask you to put your life on hold to wait for me.  I will not let you spend your hours worrying about me, about whether or not I will make it home in one piece.  I will not let you waste away your life that way.  We have both seen more times than fair how quickly it all can be snuffed out.  It would not be fair for me to ask that of you._

_We were under the optimistic illusion that this war would be over fast and quick.  We would rush in with our ground forces and take control of the skies with our planes, but now, as we approach another year in this hell, we cannot predict how long this will continue.  Years may stretch before us with no end in sight.  The whole world is gearing up for war, it is beyond our naive hope now.  You are young and you’ve been given your ticket to freedom, to safety away from the front lines.  You will never again be forced to meet the enemy head on.  Do not waste the second chance that you have been given.  I won’t let you._

_It is for those reasons that I fear I must say goodbye.  I will never forget you Alex, never.  Our time together has come to mean too much to me for that to ever happen.  And I hope that you won’t ever forget me either though it is my wish for you to take my advice and move forward with your life.  Please do not try to seek me out.  I will not tell you where I am to be stationed nor what my new role in this war will be so you cannot.  Please know it is with your best interest in my heart that I do this._

_Maybe on the other side we will meet again.  Maybe then we can be happily together._

_Just like our song…._

_I don’t know exactly when, dear,_  
But I’m sure we’ll meet again, dear,   
And my darling, till we do   
You are always in my heart

_I will always love you.  
Your Lou. _


	3. the end

**29th May 1970**

 

Alex straightened his tie and nervously checked himself over again for at least the fifth time since he had deemed he was finished getting ready.  It was just that he was nervous.  He had bought the new dark green suit specifically for the occasion but each time he evaluated himself, he felt more like a fraud.  It had been a tough decision to make the trip to Dover for the thirtieth anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk.  There would be so many decorated veterans in attendance with their dress uniforms and medals, their stories of heroic acts and further service to help win the war.  The only thing he had done was selfishly attempt to save himself, finding some bullets in the process.  

It was making him feel ashamed to show his face.  

But when it came down it, Alex had been a part of an historic event.  It had been one of the little ships that had saved his life and he owed it to them to honour what they had sacrificed to do so.  

He straightened his tie for the final time before leaving his hotel room, on the way to the exhibition of the ships on the harbour and then to the recognition dinner he had been invited to as one of the survivors.  He had not attended the anniversary in 1965 when they had established the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, he had been teaching in Boston at the time, but it had felt important for him this year.  Perhaps it was a yearning for closure for his role in the war, closure for part of his life that still held him back.  

As soon as he arrived, he wished he would have brought a guest to keep him from feeling quite so awkward.  There were small groups or pairs milling about the banquet hall and he stood off to himself, nervously fumbling with the sleeve of his suit jacket and wondering what he was thinking by attending.  

They were still in the cocktail hour of the gathering, social time for everyone but him it seemed.  He was approached by a woman with a clipboard and, after asking if he was a veteran of the Dunkirk evacuation, asked if he would be willing to tell his story for an Imperial War Museum project they were compiling.  With no reason not to, he agreed and was led off to a corner of the room where they had set up cameras for that very purpose.  

They set him up with a small mic clipped to his lapel and adjusted the lighting and he waited patiently for instructions on what to do next.  

“Please start by explaining your role during the evacuation,” the woman instructed, scribbling a few things down on her clipboard before signalling him to begin.  

He cleared his throat before starting, sure that she would write his account off just as soon as he had started.  It wasn’t an important role after all.  

“Um.  I spent two days on the beaches under heavy bombing, waiting for my turn to be taken out to one of the ships.  There were men who had decided to swim for it and even though we had seen many of them floating back to the shore unsuccessful, by the afternoon of the second day my nerves were shot and I was ready to give it a go.  At the time I figured that I would either die on the beach with the next pass of the Luftwaffe or I could take my life into my own hands and attempt to swim out to one of the civilian boats that had shown up.  I made it to one of them and got pulled aboard only to catch a few bullets as they sprayed the harbour with machine guns.  I’m afraid I don’t remember much else but I owe that little ship my life.  They got me across the channel and to the emergency hospital there.  If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here today.”  

“Can you give us your name and rank at the time of the evacuation?” the woman asked, barely looking up as she continued to take notes.

“Um, yeah.  When I arrived at Dunkirk I was Lance Corporal Alexander Styles, A&SH 6th battalion.”  He jumped at the sound of glass shattering against the hard floor and spun around towards the commotion, the little mic snapping off to the floor as he did.  

It had been an instinctual reaction but absolutely no part of him was prepared for what he found when he did.  There standing in front of him, though now a silver fox with deeper more permanent laugh lines and other signs of age, was Louis.  It was unmistakable.  The same kind eyes locked with his, frozen in a state of shock he was sure he was mirroring.  They stared at each other long enough that Alex wondered if time really had decided to stand still for them, to give them time to recognize each other after so many decades had past.  

“Alex?” Louis finally gasped, eyes twitching back and forth as if trying to decide whether he was hallucinating.  

“Lou,” he breathed out, the weight of the word falling heavily between them like an anvil.

Time was suspended as they stared at each other in disbelief and then they were colliding together in a fierce embrace that would have knocked the air right out of his lungs if he hadn’t already lost it.  It felt bone crushing but grounding and they were both blubbering into each other’s necks without regard to anyone else around them.  For a moment it was just the two of them again, their own bubble of overwhelmingly mixed emotions sealing them together without concept of how long.  

“You broke my heart,” Alex whispered out with a small sob against Louis’ ear, a choked off laugh following it by just how absurd it felt not only to be back in his arms but with so many years and unspoken words that had been left between them.  

“I broke my own too,” Louis murmured back, accentuating it with an extra squeeze, fists clenching handfuls of his suit jacket.

It took a while before they were both ready to separate from each other, each man laughing as they wiped the tears off their cheeks and blushed as they became aware of the small scene they had caused.  

“It’s good to see you,” Louis said sincerely, eyes openly scrutinised the man he had turned out to be.  Alex did the same though he felt bashful of his own thinning hair and the cane he had to start carrying around a few years back that had fallen to the floor at some point during their reunion.  

“It’s good to see you too,” he beamed, surprised at how elated he was just to know he was okay.  He lifted a finger up without thinking, delicately running it along the campaign badges, bars and medal pinned neatly to the breast of his dress uniform.  He looked handsome and distinguished in it and every bit the decorated officer he had imagined.  

“Look at you,” he said softly in awe, mostly to himself, “Proper war hero.”

A young woman who had been hovering closer to them than a stranger might bent to pick up his cane, handing it to Ales, with a shy polite smile, looking bashful for having interrupted their moment.  

“Thank you,” he smiled warmly at her, unable to stop if he tried.  “Who’s this then?” he glanced over, expecting her to be Louis’ guest.

“Alex is a very close friend of mine from the war,” Louis explained to the woman, his touch and interaction with her comfortable and relaxed as he pulled her closer to his side.  For a moment his heart dropped, smile faltering just a bit that Louis might have a girlfriend about half his age.  

“Yes, I’m Alex, nice to meet you,” he offered his hand to shake, surprised by her confident grip in contrast to her earlier shyness.  Her eyes were warm and she looked vaguely familiar.  He wondered if perhaps he had had her as a student in the past few years.  She looked about the right age for that to have happened and he had to admit that he wasn’t able to commit every student to memory after the semester was over like he had in his earlier years of teaching.

“Alex, this is my daughter.  Alexandra.”

Alex glanced over at Louis with his hand paused mid-shake to find Louis blushing fiercely, exposing a key to their time apart that that he hadn’t been expecting.  Had Louis named his daughter for him?  His reaction lended to the idea that he had.  

It was Louis’ eyes, he realised now, that he had recognised.  The same inviting kindness and shape that he had known so well.  

“It really is lovely to meet you,” Alex told her, clasping her hand with both of his for a moment with his sincere words before releasing it.  “I’d love to meet your wife, if she’s here this evening.”  

Part of him was just being polite while the others knew he was fishing for information on purpose.  It surprised him when Alexandra let out a small laugh that Louis then matched.  

“No wife.  We divorced years and years ago,” Louis explained, rocking forward with a small bounce on the balls of his feet, smiling with a knowledge unknown by Alex.  “What do you say we go find a drink after this and catch up a bit?  It looked like you were in the middle of something.”

Louis gestured back to the camera station behind him that had completely vanished from his mind, blushing a bit when he caught the eye of the woman who had no doubt been standing there watching their entire exchange.  He hoped one of the cameras hadn’t been pointed their way.  What an embarrassing display to catch on film.  

“Yeah that… That sounds good,” Alex nodded, unable to repress the smile that just kept popping back out, “I’d like that.”

 

-

 

It was quiet and nearly deserted as they walked down to the pier, the little ships gathered for the voyage the next day all bobbing in the water and looking like toys compared to the large ships that were usually docked here.  The journey was tentative for the next day due to weather set to roll in by morning but beside the extra choppy waves, moving ahead of the system, it was an almost calm and warm night.  Alex felt comfortable in just his suit jacket, his hand slid into his trouser pockets more out of nervousness than for warmth while his other gripped his cane.  

They had walked side by side with little more than comments about the banquet that had been served and the speakers they had lined up for the program.  It was superficial and impersonal but it felt like the right way to start after their sudden meeting.

“Didn’t know you were at Dunkirk,” Alex started softly when they finally reached the walkway, heavy dress shoes making hollow sounding footfalls that blended into the lull of the waves breaking the shore.  

“Didn’t know I was either,” Louis responded with a small shrug and a chuckle that made Alex smile too.  “Came back bit by bit…” he spoke of his memory loss, “A lot of it when they got me back up in the sky.  Some things are still a bit cloudy or a specific event will trigger another memory to come back.  But most of it is there now.  Our squadron did defensive runs over the beach during the evacuation.”

“Where were you when I got shot?” Alex teased, knocking shoulders with his as they continued their lazy pace, making light of what had happened was the only way he’d be able to get through the next few days.

“Fate had another plan for us that day I guess,” Louis’ voice sounded wistful, full of things left unsaid.  

They walked a few more yards in their own thoughts before Alex paused and took one step backwards to look at the motor yacht they had just passed.  

“There she is,” Alex announced, gesturing over the rail and stepping closer.  “The little ship I owe my life to.”  

Louis stepped forward and squinted to read the name painted in loopy letters along her hull.

“Lady Gay… You can’t be serious.  You just made that up right now when you saw the name!”  

“Irony at its finest,” he laughed openly while Louis stared back at him in disbelief.  

“How do you even know!” he accused but was holding back laughter himself.  

“I did some travelling after the war,” Alex shrugged, looking back at the boat bobbing there in the water.  “There were records of who arrived in what ship and then I found the owners.  This was in… 1949 I believe.  She was in rough shape when I found her but someone has given her some love.  Felt a bit like a personal quest at the time, it was a part of my story that was missing.”

Louis nodded and leaned forward to rest his weight on his elbows on one of the posts, still looking at the boat.  

“I know what you mean.  I’ve had many things I went chasing to find the missing parts of my story.  I had a little more to search for than you did though.” He smiled over but it was sad and didn’t quite reach his eyes.  

“Tell me about your wife?  What happened?”  It was a question that didn’t stay on topic but the mood felt right, felt honest, and he wanted to know.  He wanted to know everything about Louis from the past thirty years, everything that had changed him yet still made his company feel as easy as breathing.  Louis looked back out over the water that was growing darker with the late setting sun.  

“What can I say?  She was great.  Perfect wife, good cook, snappy just like me.  It should have worked… and I do still love her, we were close friends,” he looked down then and began to pick at a piece of splintering wood with his thumbnail.  “Eventually I just came to terms with the fact that I was just playing the role of being a good husband.  It was exhausting after a while to suppress so much of myself and one day I just finally came to terms with it and told her I was gay.  Of course she threw a right fit and kicked me out,” he chuckled as he shook his head fondly, “I think Lex was maybe around nine or so at the time, very dramatic.  But of course she couldn’t tell her parents why she’d kicked me out so she made something up.  They hated me for years because of it, thought I was scum.  It was rough there for a while… but we’re friends again, now.  It’s been alright.  She never took Lex away from me or anything.  I think she knew it didn’t make me a bad person but didn’t know how to handle it either.”

“How old is she?” Alex asked after clearing his throat, his emotions churning from hearing he’d had hard times.  

“Nineteen now.  Doesn’t know anything about me from the war, really.  I guess no one does.  Never talk about it so I thought it would be a good idea to bring her here and then look what happened.  I didn’t expect to see any ghosts,” he smiled up at him sadly with a small laugh.  

“Neither did I.  Almost didn’t come if I’m being honest.”  

“Why did you?”

“Felt like the right thing to do.  I lost my only real mate on that beach.  It didn’t feel right to just ignore it.”  A small breeze picked up and swirled around them almost like a spirit joining them for a moment.  They fell into an easy silence after that, something that had always been easy for them to do, to slip away into their respective thoughts without forcing unnecessary conversation.  

“I still think about it, you know,” Louis glanced up at him before looking back down at his fidgeting hands, “About whether I did the right thing.  About what you were doing.  Never stopped, really.”

The man standing before him was so much the same as the young version he had fallen so in love with that it was easy to feel like they were right back at The House, like no time had passed.  But he also held himself differently, less confidently, more like the timid confused boy that had first arrived to be his new roommate.  There were years of pain and sadness written in his body language that Alex would never be able to help him through, would never fully know.  It felt like a reflection of himself, the hollow years that often made him feel like a stranger even to himself.  

“I do too.  All the time,” he admitted, leaning back against the next post, looking down at his shoes that weren’t as shiny as they had been at the beginning of the evening.  “I tried to find you, you know.  It was like you had disappeared.  I kept searching for your name to see if you were okay, to make sure you hadn’t ended up on one of the lists.  I stayed at the same address for more than three years after the war hoping you’d contact me and when you didn’t...”  

“I thought I was going to die,” Alex almost couldn’t hear him over the rhythmic waves but it still cut through his scarred and damaged heart to hear him say it.  “I got that letter and just knew that if I got sent back into it, there was no way I was coming out.  By the time I did, I was so ashamed of just leaving you like that, not even face to face, and was so sure that you hated me for what I did, certain that you’d taken my advice and moved on and I… I knew it would break me to see you with someone else and I was already so broken.  They gave me this cross for bravery but I don’t deserve it.  I was a coward the whole time.  And so I just pushed it all down and married Alice and pretended everything was fine until I was drowning.

“I tried to look you up once… after she kicked me out.  I thought maybe… I don’t know what I thought.  But the landlady said you had moved to America and I just… took it as a sign I guess.”  

“I took a teaching contract in Boston,” he responded softly, chewing at his nail and trying not to dwell on their missed opportunities.  

Louis laughed but it came out bitter, humourless. “I suppose wishful thinking isn’t how fate works, is it?  How long are you here for then?  It would still be nice to spend some time with you.”

“Oh, no I live in London now.  I’m an English and Literature professor at King’s College.”

Louis evaluated him for a long moment before shaking his head, “I can honestly say I did not see that coming,” he smiled with a small chuckle and Alex blushed, feeling like an unsure 20 year old again instead of the established scholar that he was.  

“I started writing a lot when it was difficult for me to get around.  And reading.  And so I went back to college.  At first teaching was just an income until I could get something published but I found I really enjoyed it.  It forced me to get out of my head when I’d start getting stuck.  It still tends to happen if I’m holed up too long.”

“You always did have a knack for writing… I always thought your letters were beautiful.  I’ve read them so many times.”

“You kept them?”

“‘Course I kept them. Every single one,” a serious expression set on his face, one that Alex couldn’t question.  

“Me too.  About the only thing I’ve held onto over the years.  Especially the racy ones,” Alex threw a wink at him, grinning like a fool.  

“Oh lord,” Louis dragged a hand down his face, scratching at his scruff, “We were so reckless back then.  Could you imagine if someone had found us out?”

“I imagine you’d be able to talk us out of it.  I still don’t know how you managed to convince Nurse Collins that you were on top of me because I was cold when she walked in on us.  She brought me two blankets the next day,” he laughed and Louis snorted, his laugh lines so much more defined in his older age.  It was a handsome look on him.  

“Was it real?” Alex asked after a moment, “Or did we both just need someone to lean on at the time?”

“It was real for me… though I don’t think I let myself acknowledge that until I was back home.  It had been a bit confusing for me, I’d never felt those things for a man before or I didn’t really know if I had or not.  I had so much going on in my head at the time, so many parts of myself that were missing.  I think it was too much to try and work through when I was with you face to face. It was easier to understand those feelings once I was home.  Every time I wrote, I meant every word.”

“I did too,” Alex replied softly, looking out across the water.  They kept finding themselves in long nostalgic pauses but none of them were the slightest bit awkward.  Even aged thirty years, they still kept the best company, silences and all.  

“Are you still with the RAF?” Alex asked, his decoration seeming to pass the confines of the war.  He had always known Louis to be a good pilot even when he didn’t remember.  There was still a passion behind the small titbits that surfaced.  He thought he’d make a good instructor one day if he stayed with it, talented and disciplined enough for Cranwell.  He’d often imagined Louis that way when he thought of him during their years apart.  That too was a handsome image.  

“Left a few years after the war,” Louis shook his head, “Fly commercial now, mostly international.  It pays the bills.”

The wind began to pick up around them, a cold bite to it that cut right through their fancy trousers.  The boats bobbed around them more aggressively and the threat of rain seemed to have moved closer.  

“Do you want to head back?” Louis asked with a small nod back from the direction they had come from, “To be honest, I can’t wait to change out of this uniform.”

Alex let out a small chuckle but agreed, the wool of his own making his skin itch.  He gripped his cane as they started back towards town, to the hotel where they were both staying, much of the journey made without conversation between them.  

When they arrived in front of the hotel, they both paused with an awkward hesitation between them.  

“Would you, um… would you like to come up for that drink?” Alex offered.  He knew there was a bottle of scotch still sitting beside his suitcase, the liquid courage he had brought along knowing that he would probably need it.  

“If it’s not too late,” Louis agreed with a small nod, suddenly seeming a bit shy.  “I’ll just make a stop to get out of this jacket if it’s alright?”

Alex hummed in agreement and they both headed towards the lift together.  

 

-

 

Alex felt his nerves rising while he changed out of his suit.  He hung it dutifully back onto the hangers in the wardrobe and slipped into a pair of loose trousers.  A knock on the door sounded when he had barely finished tidying up his things and grabbed a short sleeve shirt that buttoned up the front to throw on.  

His fingers ran through his hair a final time before pulling the door open to Louis who he had been expecting but still took him a bit off guard.  It still felt a bit like seeing a ghost standing there in front of him.  The casual attire was such a stark contrast to the military dress he had been wearing all evening but he was glad for it.  It was less intimidating, this was how he remembered his Louis.  His Louis was casual and barefoot and carefree laughter.  He had never been stuffy and formal like the man from earlier.  It was a comfort to see that maybe not much had changed, fundamentally anyway.  

“Come in,” he gestured and pulled the door open wider, his smile falling when Louis failed to take the invitation.

Louis was staring, he finally noticed, eyes focused and intense with a storm of emotions running through them.  For a moment he wondered if he had carelessly left some personal items sitting out or had left the room embarrassingly messy until Louis lifted his hand.  He followed the line of his fingertip until it lightly traced across his stomach and he blushed when he realised he had left his shirt hanging open and unbuttoned in his haste.  He didn’t pull away though, something keeping him still while Louis’ finger ran over the raised and twisted skin of his scars that still marked his body just as prominently as they had when they had last been together.  It was a familiar ritual between them, worshiping the wounds that had brought them together,  and even through their years of separation the action caused the same flutter in his belly and goosebumps to raise on his arms.  His breath came in slow shaky waves while he was explored, Louis’ gaze making him feel so exposed to such detailed attention that he was no longer used to.  Fingers moved over the long since healed damage from bullets to the more recent scar from his emergency appendectomy and across to the evidence of the surgery he’d gone through several years ago to correct damage that old scar tissue had caused.  He wasn’t the gangly thin twenty year old he had been back then, his stomach not as tight, his muscles not as toned and his chest not as smooth with the dusting of chest hair that had sprung up later in his life, but none of that seemed to matter.  

Another hotel guest made his way down the hallway and while he paid them no attention, Alex still cleared his throat loudly and shifted enough that Louis was startled out of his trance.  

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologised quickly, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets and finding his feet suddenly very interesting.  

“No, don’t be.  Please come in.”  He stepped to the side again to allow Louis past and after a small hesitation, he accepted and entered enough for Alex to close the door behind them.  

“Sorry it’s not much but… um… have a seat,” he gestured to the neatly made bed, “Do you want a drink?”  He slipped into the bathroom to retrieve the two glasses that had been left by the sink and returned with both of them gripped in one hand.  

“It looks about the same as mine, don’t worry,” Louis said with a small and nervous sounding chuckle, choosing to sit in the small chair in the corner of the room.  He nodded in affirmation when Alex gestured with the bottle of scotch, about two fingers of the amber liquid filling each glass resting on top of the dresser.  

Alex handed the first glass over before becoming aware that his shirt was still hanging widely open.  He quickly fumbled with the buttons while he faced back towards the dresser and silently cursed his clumsy hands.  As a man entering his fifties, he never expected to find himself such a nervous mess yet there he was, unable to properly work a button.  He ran his fingers through his hair again, longer than it had been in his youth and with some wave that thankfully suited the fashion of the time, and picked up his own glass.  He perched himself on the edge of the bed and crossed his long legs in front of him, resting his glass against his knee.  

It had become awkward, so different than it had felt between them on the pier not even an hour before.  He took a sip of his scotch and held onto the warmth that burned across his tongue and down his throat.  

“I don’t think I would have pegged you as a scotch kind of man,” Louis spoke, a smirk hid behind his glass while he took his own sip.  

“What did you see me with, then?” Alex asked with the corners of his lips raised in an amused grin.  

“Dunno really.  Some type of martini with cherries or something classy.  Always thought you’d end up being the posh type.”  

Alex couldn’t hold back the small snort of a laugh that pushed its way out, grinning across the small space between them.  If only Louis could have seen him on the beaches of Spain just this past summer and the wild array of fancy concoctions he usually preferred.  But those were drinks for another setting.  This bottle had been intended to give him a boost of strength.  

He set his glass on the small bedside table and reached across for his cigarette clasp.  Popping it open, he offered one over to Louis before pulling one out for himself.  

“Held onto the habit I see,” Louis commented while he leaned forward and accepted the light, puffing a few times before sitting back.  

“I don’t see you declining,” he retorted and lit his own, the habit settling him as the room filled with a haze.  

“Ah yes.  I still partake occasionally.”  

There was something careful between them now, the moment at the door seeming to have thrown up their walls against the open vulnerability they had maintained near the water.  They used their cigarettes as a distraction but after a few drags, Alex didn’t feel quite as worked up.  

“Is your daughter alright on her own?” he asked after a moment, tapping his cigarette into the glass ashtray next to his drink.  

“She’s nineteen,” Louis said with a small laugh, “If I remember correctly, you were already throwing yourself into a uniform and strapping on a rifle at her age.  I think she’ll be just fine.  She’s already out on her own at university now, anyways.  She doesn’t need a babysitter.”

“Does she know?” he asked curiously, avoiding eye contact, afraid he might not like what he sees.  

“About us?  No.  I’ve never told anyone about us.  My mother, actually, she knew but she passed away not long after I was sent back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that… but no, I meant does she know about you?  About your preference?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Louis shook his head slightly, “Maybe.  She might have an idea.  We’ve never addressed it, honestly.”

“Didn’t she ever wonder when your partner was around?  Or was he always just your “roommate”?”

“Never had one.  Nothing serious, anyway, nothing more than a few nights here and there.  I never found anyone I wanted to keep around.  What about you?  You were always quite the charmer.  I’m sure you have someone waiting for you back at home.”

“Mmm,” he hummed in confirmation, “I did, back in Boston.”  He watched a flash of disappointment cross over Louis’ face but it was gone as quickly as it came.  It could have been left at that, their time apart left as just that, a mystery between them, but it didn’t feel right.  

“We lived together for nearly four years.  He was a history professor at the same university.”

Louis leaned forward to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray and Alex focused on the trail of smoke that curled up in its wake.  

“I take it you aren’t together now?”

“When my teaching contract was up, I didn’t ask him to come with me, he didn’t ask me to stay.  It was nice, for a while.  We still keep in touch every now and then but in the end, he told me he didn’t think my heart was in it and I had to agree.  I don’t think I ever loved him like I should have.”

“You don’t have anyone back in London?”  Alex didn’t want to imagine the hint of hope in his voice but it was there, a small flicker confirming it in his bright eyes.  

“Nothing serious,” he shook his head, stubbing out his own cigarette that was nearly scorching his fingers.  The Sexual Offenses Act may have been a turning point several years before but watching the younger members of his community begin to flourish in a changing world did little for an older man looking for steady companionship.  There were still struggles and in his position as an educator, he stood to lose more than just his reputation if caught in a compromising position.  It was a guarded life that left little room for mistakes.  

It seemed such a contradiction from the novels he had published over the last decade.  He wrote of gay men in the military, of forbidden love stories between two men, others with various homosexual themes winding through his plots - all written under a penname he kept under lock and key.  There were several that had become popular in the community and even used to help power various movements, even at his own university.  He had seen the familiar covers in the hands of his very own students who found strength in the words of a man who had never found the strength himself.  There had been a time he had blamed his hesitation, his reluctance, on Louis stealing the wind from beneath his sails but now, sitting across from him, he knew that had never been the truth.  

He swirled the last of his scotch in his glass, staring down at the small whirlpool it created before downing it in one confident gulp.  

“I blamed you for a lot of things,” Alex started, speaking slowly to gather up his thoughts and his courage, “A lot of things.  But I think I was always scared that things were never going to be as easy with anyone else as they had always been with you.”  He looked up and met the familiar eyes residing in a man much older than where his memory took him.  He found a pain deeply set in them that radiated out and rested in every part of his being, his posture, his nervous ticks, the tight line of his lips.  He may have been stabbing him with the honesty of his words but there was nothing new about the suffering he saw there.  There were poorly healed over wounds that festered and scarred and he recognized them because he saw the same thing in himself when he looked in the mirror.  Neither one of them had been able to heal on their own, not without the other.  

“It still feels easy with you,” he admitted and it felt altering to be relieved of the weight he had always equated with age.  

“It does feel easy with you,” Louis agreed softly, “To think we’ve only lived several miles apart.  I would enjoy spending some time with you back in London, if you’d let me.”

“I think I’d like that.”

 

**2nd October 1970**

 

“Did you have to pack so many books?” Louis complained after letting another heavy box thump loudly to the floor.  It took him a moment to stand upright again, hand rubbing at his lower back as he winced.  “You know my back has been bad.”

“Books are how I make a living!  I can’t help it!” Alex argued from his spot in the corner, elbows deep in another box he was unpacking onto the built in bookshelves that lined the walls of the study.  It faced the front of the house, large windows letting in the natural light on two walls.  He had already claimed the room as his own, a place to tuck himself away to write, to hole himself up in when Louis was away for days at a time.  There had been nothing but a fond smile that met this announcement, Louis not protesting or fighting it.  Having a home office Alex could work from was one of the requirements when they had started viewing properties.  

He didn’t want to waste any time settling into his space, not with the term already in full swing.  That was the excuse he had used when he’d started opening instead of carrying boxes, at least after he had nearly fallen down the front steps carrying too many things without the aid of his cane.  Louis had ordered him away from the moving truck after that but he still wanted to appear useful.  

Louis sat on the edge of the solid cherry desk, one that they had paid movers to bring in thankfully, and scratched at the salt and pepper scruff along his jaw that still held a twinge of ginger.  He surveyed their work, the stacks of boxes growing taller as their lives slowly mixed together in their new space.  

“You could have at least marked them for the movers to take care of or even not as many in each box,” Louis continued to complain, bickering as an excuse to take a small break between trips.  It was always a bit of a sore spot to realise neither one of them were as young and capable as they used to be and both were masters of deflecting from that reality.

“Or I could point out that it is your handwriting on that box.  You should have thought of that when you decided I wasn’t moving fast enough and threw them all in there yourself when you were over last week.”  He hid his smirk as he turned away to shelve a few more things.

“You started flipping through the pages of each one you picked up!!” he threw his hands up in exasperation, “It would have taken you weeks!!”

Their spat was interrupted by Louis’ daughter poking her head in the room, a large box held in front of her.  She leaned forward to temporarily balance it on one knee, leaning forward to brace it against the door jam.  

“There are a few that just say “bedroom”, which bedroom?” Alexandra asked, tilting the box so the black sharpie scribble was turned towards them.  

“Mine,” Louis and Alex both answered at the same time, “I mean his,” they both respond in unison again before glancing at each other hesitantly.  

“Which one?” she asked, looking between them with an expression Alex wasn’t quite able to read.

“Ours,” Louis said after just a moment, visibly swallowing down the crack in his voice, “Our bedroom.”  

Alex turned sharply to look at him, shocked that he would suddenly be so candid.  As far as he knew, their living arrangement had been made to appear like two older bachelors who had found it more economical to be roommates, the truth of it remaining on a need to know basis which was very limited.  

Louis reached over to take his hand, linking their fingers together where his remained limp in surprise.  They were just holding hands but it felt more scandalous in the presence of others, in the presence of his daughter who could choose not to accept him.   

Alexandra burst into laughter on the spot, rolling her eyes at them with a fond smile on her face while Alex felt his heart might give out from the irregular beat it caused.  Alexandra had become important to him as well over the past few months.  He genuinely cared about her opinion and how she would feel about the relationship he had started with her father, the relationship that they already had.  He wanted to be someone she could trust and respect and maybe even come to love as a parent in the future.  The possibility of that happening felt on the verge of collapsing while she laughed, his hopes slowly being crushed by the thought that they may have revealed their relationship too soon and in the wrong way.  They had discussed it, Louis and himself, and had agreed they were both tired of hiding, that they had become serious enough to risk the backlash.  But not yet.  

“You can’t honestly think I would be that dense,” she smiled as her laughter died out, “I know you, dad, I’ve been your daughter for nineteen years.  And neither one of you have been very subtle around me.”

Alex finally squeezed the fingers that were holding his, linking them fully and closing the distance between them so they were sat side by side.  Louis pulled their hands up to his mouth and pressed a kiss into the back of Alex’s hand.  It made his nerves flutter to have even such a small show of affection displayed in front of anyone outside their small circle of close friends, a circle that mainly consisted of others like them.  

She abandoned the box on the floor by her feet and came across the room to wrap her arms around her father’s middle in a tight hug.  Louis returned it, pulling her close but not releasing his grip on Alex either.  It felt nice to be claimed for once instead of shifting to the role of good friend every time they went out.  It was a change he could get used to, a small step towards the courage they needed to be open in public.  

 “I’m glad you’re finally happy,” she said softly into her father’s neck before reaching out to pull Alex into the hug with them.  He melted in easily, squeezing both Tomlinsons with every bit of love he had been reserving and holding back for so many years.      

He knew the words hadn’t been meant for him but he couldn’t help but take them personally.  For the first time in decades, he was finally able to admit that he was truly happy as well.  A home, a career, a companion, a family. It was the cliched ending to his own fairytale and as selfish as it was, he couldn’t think of another pair that deserved it more.  

 

**23rd December 1971**

 

Alex shrugged the afghan to a more snug position around his shoulders, cozying in from the chill left after the fire had died down to coals in their fireplace.  He had been too focused to take the time to stir up the flames and add another log.  In the back of his mind he knew he should tend to it, make an effort for the house to be warm and inviting when it was no longer just himself.  

Louis was due home at any time.  It had been four days since Alex had seen him, jetting around the world for one last leg before returning to celebrate his birthday and Christmas.  He knew it would be one of his first comments when entering the house to find it chilled and dark.  He hadn’t even taken the time to plug in the Christmas lights they spent hours hanging a few weekends ago.

Their door began to rattle and after a moment creaked open with a loud squeak.  He’d been meaning to oil that.  He heard the familiar sound of Louis’ suitcase being plunked down on the floor in the hall before each of his boots clunked one after the other in the same fashion.  There was the rustling of his pilot’s coat being shed and hung on the coat tree and then wandering footsteps.  New light filtered through the doorway to the study when their Christmas lights were plugged in and then more footsteps moving closer.  

“Oh, hi.  I didn’t think you were home,” Louis appeared in the doorway.  Alex looked up with a smile, his hands paused in front of him holding a worn piece of paper.  

“Welcome home.”  

“Not a very warm welcome,” he scoffed lightly, Alex smirking at his predictable reaction and his eyes followed him as he moved across the room to stir the embers to get it going again.  

“I was just waiting for you to come do it for me,” he couldn’t resist, chuckling when Louis shook his head in mock annoyance.  It didn’t take long before warmth began rolling off the flames once again with just a little attention and the screen fixed back into place.

Louis came around Alex’s desk, rubbing his shoulders gently as he kissed the top of his head.  

“Hi, missed you,” he added and his fingers began to dig deliciously into his tense muscles, the afghan falling back down around his arms.  Alex groaned in appreciation and leaned back into his touch, tilting his head back to look up.  

“How was your flight?” he asked, abandoning his work that had taken over his space.  

“Long.”  It was a simple answer but in the time they had been back together, Alex already knew it to mean that his back had been acting up for him again.  After a few days strung together of long flights back to back, it tended to get to him by the time he arrived back home.  

“I’ll make you up a hot water bottle and some tea if you’d like,” he offered and lifted his own hands to rest on top of the ones on his shoulders.  “Why don’t you go change into something more comfortable and then keep me company?”

Louis smiled and leaned down to press a gentle kiss against his lips before giving his shoulders another gentle squeeze.  Alex accepted help to stand and slowly made his way to their kitchen, his limp more prominent after hours of sitting in the same position.  He sometimes wished Louis could have seen him when he was able to walk on his own without a noticeable interruption in his gait.  It had been a long, hard road, an extended process that took him years.  It had paid off, though.  His limitations had been minimal until his age had caught up with his borrowed time, but if anyone understood, it would be someone who had seen him at his worst, seen him when even standing had seemed improbable.  

They had fallen into domesticity as easily as they had fallen into conversation, both at the point in their lives where they knew exactly what they wanted out of a relationship.  There was something about the fact that the two older men had lived together so intimately once that now after so long it wasn’t difficult puzzling the pieces of their lives back together.  They had become companions, a description that Alex had adapted and embraced since defining their relationship.  Having built his entire adult life around words, Louis was the definition of his companion, a pair intended to complement each other, and he refused to accept any other term.   They took care of each other, just as they always had, though the specifics may have changed.  Where bad habits still persisted, the other prevailed and even if they enjoyed bickering with each other, they stayed harmonious.  

He started some water for tea and moved around the kitchen with practiced ease to prepare a tray to carry into the study.  Their hot water bottle was frequently used, tucked into a cupboard for easy access.  He wrapped it in a small towel after filling it up and set it on the tray next two their two teacups.  

After a careful journey back into the study, he slid the tray onto the edge of his desk, his concentration focused on not spilling their hot beverages.  Once it was safely balanced he stood up straight and walked around to where Louis was standing on the opposite side.  He had changed into some sweatpants and one of Alex’s plain white undershirts that hung off his frame.  The look made him smile and want to forget about his current project and snuggle up to him in front of the fire.  He settled for slipping his arms around his middle from behind, leaning down to his size to peer over his shoulder.  

He recognised the familiar letter immediately, one that was nearly worn through on the creases, the ink smudged and running in several places.  There was an intimacy between himself and the letter, each word read over so many times he could recite it from memory if prompted.  It seemed to be quivering in Louis’ hand and it was no doubt like seeing a ghost appear before him.  It was the last letter he had ever received from Louis, the one that had broken them both.  Beyond them the rest of their letters were laid out or stacked up in the rest of Alex’s workspace, envelopes from each of their collections mixing together while he attempted to organise them into chronological order.  

“Never thought I’d lay eyes on this again,” Louis breathed out shakily, gingerly laying it on top of the rest.  “Feeling nostalgic tonight?”

“I felt like our story needed to be told.  I’m writing it so the world can see how we fell in love.”

“It’s a bit of a silly story, really,” Louis said weakly, his whispered words betraying his actual thoughts on the matter.  

“I want to remind society that it wasn’t always as easy as it is becoming today.  I want to document the struggles that we faced for future generations to look back on when things are more accepted, because they will be one day, I know they will be.  But more importantly, I want to show that there is always hope, even when it takes a long time to come.”

“You’ve already left your mark, Lex.”

He lifted a hand to gesture to the section of the shelf that housed the published novels that held the words that he had written, the ones that had already reached so many.  

“I want to make it personal,” he confessed softly, linking their fingers up together as he placed a gentle kiss to the back of his neck.  

“I think that’s beautiful.”

And really, that was exactly what they were.  

Their relationship wasn’t a fairytale that children daydream about, it wasn’t the plot of a best selling romance novel, it wasn’t even the plot from a classic literary work.  But they were real.  

And there was nothing more beautiful than that.  


	4. bonus scenes

 

  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


**Bonus Scene**

**4th July 1970**

***news reporter about belfast killing civilians***

“Yesterday a standoff in Belfast led to the deaths of three civilians and ten members of the British Army--”

“Would you turn that off?” Alex asked, poking his head around the small dividing wall that separated the kitchen in his small apartment from the living space where Louis was watching the news.  It had been decades, he had even wrote and researched war, but he still despised hearing about violence that felt unnecessary.  Some days it bothered him more than others and tonight was one he was trying to enjoy.  Alex had spent many evenings together with Louis over the past month, many of them in each other’s homes, and tonight he was cooking up a dinner he was especially proud of.  It wasn’t anything particularly special but he was proud of it nonetheless.  So many years of cooking for one had left him limited with some of his choices and it was nice to expand without worrying about wasting uneaten leftovers.  

He heard the click and the droning voices cut off and turned back to the stove.  He nearly jumped when he felt a gentle hand on the small of his back but relaxed into it immediately.  

“Smells good,” Louis commented and peeked around him to see what he was cooking up even though they had been to the shops together just an hour ago for the menu choice.  

“Should be done shortly, just a few more minutes.”  

“I meant you,” Louis clarified, pressing his nose against his shoulder blade to breathe him in.  It made him tingle, he couldn’t help it, being back with Louis was still a rush to his system and with only lingering hugs and innocent pecks on the cheek, it was the most intimate thing to happen between them in thirty years.  

He could feel the stubble on Louis’ chin poking him through his thin shirt and it tickled him in a way that he wanted to feel it everywhere, wanted Louis to kiss him everywhere with that beard so he’d feel it for hours.

“Still smell the same,” Louis commented softly, sliding his hands around to splay out warmly over his stomach that felt like it could flip at the feeling.  He tried to speak but found his throat closed, having to clear it instead which caused him to emit an embarrassing squeak.  He was a grown man and he still found it hard to keep himself in check around Louis.  He had that kind of effect on him.  He could feel Louis smiling against his back, though, and knew it was a fond one.  He’d seen it there hundreds of times and could recognise it, even from feel.

The hands roamed under his shirt, caressing his scarred stomach in a way that used to make him feel self conscious when being close with others but with Louis it felt as natural as breathing. Louis had been there before time had turned them to scars.  He even knew his scars that weren’t always seen, the ones that were buried deep and dormant.

His fingertips roamed up over his nipples that hardened under the attention and his breath caught when he squeezed one gently between his fingers.  They travelled back down again until they were sliding just underneath the waist of his trousers, still the khaki coloured dress ones he had worn into the office earlier that day though he had shed his jumper before starting to cook.  Fingers played with the clasp holding them shut then teasingly ran up and down the zip, just grazing his soft cock underneath that definitely enjoyed the attention.  

“I know we haven’t talked about it yet,” Louis murmured against the junction of his neck and shoulder, lips touching the bare skin there, “But I’d really like to get you in my mouth.”  He pressed up against Alex’s hip then where he could feel something firm that was most likely not his wallet in his trousers.  

“Mhm! Yes, mm, yes,” he fumbled out unlike the confident English professor he claimed to be and was on a daily basis.  He felt like he was twenty again, a spike in hormones surging through him that now felt like a hit of drugs at his age.  He hadn’t felt so alive in years.

Louis spun him around and pinned his hips to the counter’s edge, Alex’s hands held up at his sides, one still gripping the spatula.  He couldn’t care, didn’t even notice, because Louis was ripping into his trousers and pulling him out like he was on fire and maybe he was.  He looked down to where the fist was now loosely circling him and was surprised to find he was mostly hard already, it hadn’t happened that fast in a decade at least.  He usually needed some coaxing but there it was, riding off the adrenaline just as he was and more than eager to play.

It felt so good when his hand moved, torturous strokes that made him moan like he had been starved for it.  It had been a while since he had been with someone but not long enough for the contact to feel this amazing.  That was all Louis, all nostalgia and energy and intention hyperfocused on making him feel good.  

“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” Louis mumbled against his ear and they both startled when the spatula he had been holding clattered to the ground.    

The kisses moved slowly down his neck to the collar of his shirt, hand working over him while he gripped at the edge of the counter to keep himself upright.  Louis gripped his hips and started to lower himself to the kitchen floor, making it down on one knee before grunting.

“Fuck, this stupid knee, I can’t.  I can’t on this floor,” he shook his head, “Can we… is there somewhere else?”

“Bed, yeah we can go to bed,” Alex nodded perhaps a little too quickly, hand almost blindly searching for the stove controls to switch off the flame so their meal wouldn’t be burned to a crisp when they returned for it.  

Louis tried to rock himself up to his feet but didn’t gain enough momentum.  He sighed and looked up at Alex, holding out a hand.  

“I’m sorry, could you…?  This knee is shot.”  It was clear he was embarrassed but it didn’t cause Alex to flag one bit.  The entire foundation of their relationship had been built during a time he wasn’t even able to stand on his own let alone walk or use his knees for much of anything.  He also still had his own issues with mobility that were becoming increasingly more limiting as time passed.  It made him snort out a laugh as he hauled Louis up, catching him up in a long kiss that easily repaired the break in mood Louis had obviously been fearing.  

“Bed,” he pushed gently at his shoulders, stumbling after him when he made the first few steps backwards.  After they shared a small laugh at how ridiculous they were being, they linked hands and pulled each other to the bedroom.  

Louis had never been in Alex’s bedroom so far in their rekindled relationship and once they were through the door, he took a second to do a quick sweep of the room with his eyes to make sure there wasn’t anything too revealing or embarrassing out of place.  Luckily he kept a rather tidy house since it was just himself and apart from the sweater he had thrown on top of the bed when they had returned that evening, everything seemed in order.  

He stripped off his vest and tossed it carelessly to the floor, letting his already undone trousers fall down around his ankles as well with his pants.  Even if it was going to be a quick act, it still felt better to be nude against the sheets if he had the choice.  

His skin felt hot under Louis’ appraising gaze and he tried not to focus on it while he started to peel the quilt off his neatly made bed to keep it clean.  Louis crowded up behind him as he did, hugging him front to back while a hand sneaked down to circle his erection once again.  Alex’s breath hitched in surprise then he moaned, trying to finish pulling the quilt free while being jerked off with a warm body pressed against him.   

“You feel just like I remember,” Louis breathed against his shoulder blade, kissing him there with warm moist lips and that stubble of his felt amazing against his bare skin just as he imagined it would. “Thought about you so many times.”  

“Me too,” he leaned his hands forward against the mattress to steady himself, hips pushing back against Louis’ with his position.  

“Get on the bed,” Louis instructed, releasing him momentarily so they could move.  

Alex lay back against his pillows and wrapped his own hand around himself, stroking slowly.  Louis shrugged off his own shirt and then rid himself of his trousers.  A pout almost came to his lips when he left his pants on, crawling up onto the bed between his spread legs.  

“That’s my job, let me,” Louis pulled his hand away and replaced it with his own.

When his lips finally closed around him, Alex felt like he was hallucinating.  There had been so many times he had touched himself to this very image, sure he’d never see it again and it was surreal for it to become a reality.  The view was slightly different, the mix of grey and white mingling with his naturally dark colour something to add to the fantasy but it still felt the same when he ran his fingers through it.  He liked it, though, age was distinguished on him.  Age also added a level of intimacy that he hadn’t realised it would.  It wasn’t the fuelled rush to get each other off that it always seemed to be before.  Instead there was a patience in them both that let him enjoy every detail without stripping away the intensity.

They were also secure in themselves in a way they hadn’t been.  Changing times and experiences had led them both on their journeys to self discovery that eliminated the uncertainty that always seemed to linger in the background of all their actions.  Coming to terms with being gay and what that meant for themselves was a foreign concept to them when they had touched each other because it felt good, scared of what the implications of that meant.  They had grown into confident gay men who knew what they wanted and why and that security let them indulge.  

Alex’s toes curled against the mattress after tenting his legs to frame Louis between them, moaning and gripping the sheets and then threading back into Louis’ hair and then his own.  He had let it grow shaggy with the trend and it felt good to yank gently at it while Louis worked some magic with his mouth.  It was probably the best blow job of his life and he’d received a fair amount of them in half a century.  

“Lou… Lou, I’m gonna…” he tapped his cheek urgently.

“Wait for me,” he pulled off and shuffled around until he was kneeling between his legs where he had just been.  Louis pushed down his pants and grasped himself, the sight making Alex twitch against his stomach and lick his lips, wanting to get his own mouth around it.  

It was like deja vu when Louis loomed over him and took them both into one hand, memories of Christmas lights and confessions flickering past.  Louis braced himself with his free arm, twisting scars overlapping all the way up past his shoulder just as Alex remembered they would be.  They were beautiful because they were Louis, beautiful because that was how they had met, how they had put each other back together.  

Alex moaned when their lips connected, sloppy in execution but the performance didn’t matter to him in that moment.  Their teeth could clash and he would still relish in the fact that it was Louis who was above him.  

They panted and groaned and whimpered together until one of them fell over the edge, he couldn’t even tell which one of them it was who went first since they were both coming together with heaving chests and messy tummies.

“Well that was not what I was expecting when I invited you over for dinner,” Alex let out a breathy laugh, combing his damp hair off his forehead.  

“Oh nooo,” he groaned in realisation, “It’s probably burnt to the pan by now.”  

“I’ll order a curry, I don’t care,” Louis rolled off to his side, flopping onto his back with a sigh,  “That’s more exhausting than it used to be.”  

“You’re just out of shape,” Alex laughed softly but understood what he meant.  He couldn’t deny that a nap sounded heavenly after all that exertion.  

“Next time you can do all the work then,” Louis joked and shoved his shoulder playfully.  

“Next time huh?  You think there’s going to be a next time?” He couldn’t help the grin that grew over his face as he said it, no way to hide how fond he was of the idea.    

“If I have any say in it, I am almost certain there will be a next time.”  Louis’ fingers crawled around until he found Alex’s hand, linking their fingers together with a small squeeze.  

“Yeah?” he let his head roll to the side to watch his expression, “I think I’d like that too.”  

  
  
  
  


**July 1940 Louis Crash Bonus Scene**

 

The football went sailing through the air and landed directly in the middle of a heated card game, the wood balanced on a crate serving as a table toppling over with stray cards taking flight on the light breeze in the air.  

“TOMMO!! What the hell do you think you’re doing!  I had Justine’s ring riding on that game!” Collins bellowed as he jumped to his feet, ripping the cigarette from between his lips to shout at him properly.  

“Oi come off it, I wasn’t aiming at your little game, no need to be brassed off,” Louis rolled his eyes at his fellow pilot, all of them easy to rile up with the tension they had constantly sitting on them now.  The need to be perpetually on alert was getting to all of them, had them at each other’s throats, but as soon as they were up in the air their squadron was as flawless as smooth butter.  Their team was constantly changing, it seemed, but their leaders forceful powers that demanded nothing but the best and it showed.  On the ground, it was a different story.  

“Don’t play that innocent card!  You don’t have an innocent bone in your body!” Collins began to stalk forward with purposeful steps, his parachute pack bouncing against the backs of his thighs where it was already strapped and ready to jump into action.  

“And you couldn’t win a game of poker to save your life!” Louis retorted as he squared his shoulders.  He was shorter than most of the pilots, highly aware of it in fact, but his power stance always made up for the difference.  

“You want to come over here and say that to my face??”

“I think you’re already on your way over here so I’d be glad to,” Louis challenged while he placed his hands on his hips and stood his ground.  

“You’re in cahoots with Jenkins!  I saw you speaking earlier!” Collins continued to rant, his face turning red with anger.  

“Bullshi--”

The end of his word was cut off when the ring of the all too familiar telephone hit their ears.  They all froze, anger disappearing as if it had never been there in the first place in the longest seconds hanging in the air.  

“41 scramble!” Their order sends them into motion before the words were even out, the whole squadron sprinting to their Spitfires, snapping up their gear on the way.

“You get her patched up from earlier?” Louis asked his mechanic helping him prep and buckle in as he gets her started.  He had taken some bullets on a sortie earlier in the day but the damage had been minimal.  The plane was still flyable but he felt safer having everything in order, even if it was minor.  

“Yup, all set to go,” he thumped his hand against the body as it sputtered to life.  He stayed on the wing just long enough to see that Louis had pulled his headset on without needing assistance before hopping down and then it was go time.  

He reached up and slid the dome over the cockpit closed, the plane already in motion down the grass runway with the rest of his squad flanking him across the field.  The Spitfires took off with practiced ease, the hum of the engine all around him something that Louis lived for.  

“Let’s go hunting lads!” he called through the radio as they all fell into formation and set their course towards the expected coordinates of attack.  With any luck, they’d arrive first to have the upper hand.  They were a successful squadron, more of them experienced pilots than some of the rookie squads.  It felt like they were the best of the best when they were flying together, seek and destroy was their motto and they were good at both.  

“What are we up against?” Louis asked over the chatter, settling in over their short journey to their target.  

“Bomber formation, coastal target expected.”

It seemed fairly standard after their last few weeks and Louis was ready, he was hyped.  This was what he lived for.  The adrenaline was already pumping heavily through his veins, his body buzzing with it.  

His eyes were alert, trained to detect every movement in his periphery when entering their target zone.  The sun was at his back, a fortunate advantage, and the skies were clear enough to avoid a dive attack from the shelter of the clouds.  

“Bandits straight ahead,” he heard over his headset at the same time the formation came into view ahead flying at a lower altitude.  

“Watch for snappers.”

“Fritz coming in.”

“Break!”

The chatter was constant but necessary, each pilot knowing their role but also how to maneuver on their own in the world of dog fights that had no rules.  Louis was one who liked to go rogue, chancing risky moves and strategies to slip in where he needed to be.  He had saved many of his fellow pilot’s tails by these moves but had also had too many close calls to counts.  It was better to live dangerously he always thought.  

He pushed into a corkscrew to attract attention diving in one direction only to pull up sharply and lock a 109 in his sight.  He pulled on the trigger for a few short squirts of fire, hollering out as the enemy plane began to spin out beneath him while he moved on.  The rodeo in the sky continued like this, their squad gaining the upperhand while some swooped down to target the bombers without their security detail.  

“We’ve got ‘em boys!”

“Come around.”

“Plug away!”

“Bang on!”

Louis rose above the action to find his next dive, focusing his attention forward as he searched for a target.  

“Shit!” he nearly jumped a mile when the bullet on metal sounded close to his head.

“Bandits on my tail!” he shouted, attempting to break away to his right with a cross dive, searching for an exit.

The thin fabric of his shirt started to feel wet along his arm and he tried to ignore it for a moment but the distinct smell of aviation fuel filling the cockpit was becoming overwhelming.  He checked his gauges and cursed to see the needle lower than it should be.  He’d have to get someone on it ASAP when they returned.  A bullet must have pierced his line.  

He knew he should turn back, run from the thick of things with a crippled craft but it wasn’t in him to retreat.  There was still enough in his tank to make it to the airfield.  He just wished he would have worn his jacket so he didn’t have to feel so soggy.  It was the middle of summer and usually it hindered his performance in the already warm aircraft and sweat of adrenaline fuelled energy.  He wasn’t the only pilot who chose to forgo the full uniform.  

Everything happened at once so even he wasn’t sure what happened first.  Distraction, actually, had happened first.  He had let himself become distracted by the fuel gauge and the condition of his craft.  He wasn’t sure what direction it had come from but he was taking fire, the ping of the bullets amplified around him on top of a whoosh that took him by surprise.  His vision turned red, yellow and red and he was on fire.  The heat was intense and sweat poured down his face like a cup of water had been poured over him and someone was screaming, it was him and it was all happening so fast.  Voices were in his ears but he couldn’t understand them and the canopy above him was scalding hot to the touch.  He fought with it until it slid back and then he was cold, freezing cold and the wind was strong and everything was black and then entirely too bright.  It hurt to open his eyes but he forced them to crack and searched for his rip cord.  His body jerked painfully and then it was absolutely dead silent.  Dead silent and blindingly bright and he was dead.  This was the entrance to heaven, tranquil and overwhelming and unlike anything he had experienced.  Something warm and wet slid down his forehead in contrast to the chill around him.  He lifted his hand to swipe it away and it came back red, bright red and thick and his arm was covered in a charred mess of ash.  Heaven wouldn’t be this dirty.  He floated along in a haze of thoughts that wouldn’t process and then the ground was approaching fast beneath him. He screamed in panic and began to thrash around, his body crumpling up in a roll when he hit the grass hard.  The pain exploded throughout his body and he moaned.

“Get out of here you dirty German!” he heard a shrill voice scream and then with the thunk of a shovel to his head, he was out.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you have enjoyed this. I'll come back with a tumblr post after the reveal!


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